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You are here: Home / Archives for The Chatty DM

Gears of Ruin: Session 1, Revolutions per Machines, Part 1

January 10, 2010 by The Chatty DM

Last Friday we started our Clockwork D&D campaign.  We spent about one hour completing the Party Template I wrote about here then we played a 2 scenes mini-adventure I dubbed ‘RPM’.  🙂 Here’s the 1st game report of what I hope will be yet another awesome campaign. Dramatis Persona Nar-Beth: Female Dwarven Druid from a […]

Filed Under: Campaign Logs, Musings of the Chatty DM, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: 4e, Chatty's 2009-2010 Campaign, Gears of Ruin

Friday Chat: Zen and the Art of Dodging Dead Ends

January 8, 2010 by The Chatty DM

A few weeks before X-mas, I mentioned on that “When failure is not an option in a scene, don’t roll any dice”.  I think I coined the expression first when I Jedi Mind tricked my Mutant Future GM at a local con into saving me a roll that would likely derail the game if I […]

Filed Under: Musings of the Chatty DM, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: advice, Friday Chat

On 4e Adventures: Part 1, Third Parties and the Freelance Writer

January 7, 2010 by The Chatty DM

I’m a very instinctive type of guy, and lately my gut feeling has told me that some 3rd party publishers of 4e adventures have left the boat (or are thinking about doing it).  For instance, I learned yesterday that Joseph Goodman of Goodman Games has been musing online about adding Pathfinder support to his DCC […]

Filed Under: Freelance Writing, Musings of the Chatty DM, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: 4e, adventure design

Blog Merge: Gut Reaction and Expectations

January 5, 2010 by The Chatty DM

(Boy am I glad not to post this on April 1st) During my scientific training I was thought never to keep a punch till the end if I wasn’t writing a story.  So here it is, I’m seriously considering merging Musings of the Chatty DM into the structure of my friend Dave’s Critical Hits* while […]

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

Gears of Ruin: Party Creation Session Template

January 4, 2010 by The Chatty DM

We start the new year with a new D&D 4e campaign.  I spoke a little bit about this new D&D 4e clockwork campaign we were starting. After having read the first chapter of the Dungeon Master Guide 2, Mouse Guard and having heard about several games where character generation is part of the shared game […]

Filed Under: Adventure Prep, Musings of the Chatty DM, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: 4e, advice, Chatty's 2009-2010 Campaign, DM tools, Gears of Ruin, Player input

Chatty’s Goals for 2010

January 1, 2010 by The Chatty DM

Happy new year people!  New year, new ‘decade’ (hush, pedants) and possibly new pants! As is becoming a tradition on Musings, this is when I look over last year’s goals and set new ones.  I say goals and not resolutions because resolutions are all about ‘have to, and should, and ought to” and I have […]

Filed Under: blogging, Freelance Writing, Geek Stuff, Musings of the Chatty DM, Roleplaying Games

Chatty’s Year 2009 and the Importance of the Tribe

December 31, 2009 by The Chatty DM

Yes, Yet another Year End Post.  I’m sure the RPGbloggers network‘s first page must crumble under that Echo Chamber effect. But I don’t quite care about that.  🙂 The Year in Review Oh man what a year.  Last year you could taste the the first signs of the rapid unraveling of my mind in my […]

Filed Under: blogging, Freelance Writing, Geek Stuff, Musings of the Chatty DM, Roleplaying Games

Nico’s Lego RPG: Assault on the Crystal King’s Cave, Part 2

December 30, 2009 by The Chatty DM

See part 1 here. Cave of the Crystal Kings I set up the second and final encounter of our little game by piling books and boxes to create a ‘throne’ for the Crystal King. Chatty: All right,  the king awaits your arrival. Nico: Oh Dad, wait, I’ve got these gems in the Rock Wrecker. Chatty: […]

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

Nico’s Lego RPG: Assault on the Crystal King’s Cave, Part 1

December 29, 2009 by The Chatty DM

I was thinking how long it had been since I played a post-worthy RPG session with my soon-to-be 8 years old son Nico.  A few weeks ago, I made him a Swords and Wizardry PC and we started doing a random dungeon crawl but I made the bad decision of using the 1e DMG dungeon […]

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

Merry Chirstmas and Happy Holidays

December 25, 2009 by The Chatty DM

It’s X-mas morning and my family is doing geeky things. My daughter asked to play on the CBC kids website right after watching the Disney Parade. My son and wife are playing Wii Sports Resort and I’m just checking a few things online before joining back the fun. I just thought I’d take a few […]

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

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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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