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You are here: Home / Archives for The Chatty DM

Caspule Reviews: Heavy Gear, Adventurer’s Vault 2, Eberron Campaign Guide

September 16, 2009 by The Chatty DM

I’m going to try something new here.  I have a pile of products to review and, to be quite frank, I don’t like doing long-winded reviews anymore. I think that the true appeal of a product can be projected in less than 100 words.  I also believe that what many people look for in a […]

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

#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

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

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

Primal/Within Chronicles: City of the Overmind, Part 3

September 9, 2009 by The Chatty DM

See part 2 here. Stealth and the Art of Not Getting Killed in a Hostile City Chatty DM: So what do you want to do first? Yan: Well, we’ll start my goal of trying to find rumors about the possible location of the key pats. Chatty: All right then let’s make this a 5 part […]

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

Primal/Within Chronicles: City of the Overmind, Part 2

September 8, 2009 by The Chatty DM

See part 1 here. Burning Dungeon & Wheel Dragons As Wednesday night was ticking by, a dangerous new idea about the way to run a D&D adventure came up… You see, like many gamers unused to indie RPG designs, I read Mouse Guard with voracity but finished it with the  feeling that while I had […]

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

Primal/Within Chronicles: City of the Overmind, Part 1

September 8, 2009 by The Chatty DM

Previously in our game… After a few months of rest our heroes are called to save citizens of the City Within from the monstrous tentacles of a clutch of aberrant creatures. Following clues left behind by the monsters and the ever elusive ‘Master’, the party prepares to use thier recently acquired teleportation lore to follow […]

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

Touched with Fire, the 700th post.

September 7, 2009 by The Chatty DM

This post will get intensely personal, while overall positive, it will dwell on some of my personal issues of the last year. Feel free to skip Way back in November, I wrote a somewhat somber post celebrating my 500th post. At the time, I didn’t realize that I was diving full speed into severe depression, […]

Filed Under: blogging, Freelance Writing, Musings of the Chatty DM Tagged With: Bipolar Disorder, Milestone

Old School Geekout: The Order of the Grappling Hook, Part 4

September 5, 2009 by The Chatty DM

This series has been a play by play report of my first Sword and Wizardry (A retroclone of the 1st, 1974 version of D&D) game.  I used  Chgowiz’s Quick Start rules and starting adventure that you can find here. You can find part 3 here. You Dum Dum! Me Stony! Hired by the cowardly goblin […]

Filed Under: Campaign Logs, Musings of the Chatty DM, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: Sword and Wizardry

Old School Geekout: The Order of the Grappling Hook, Part 3

September 4, 2009 by The Chatty DM

This is part 3 of my retelling of last weekend’s Sword and Wizardry Quick-Start game we played at our monthly Geekout.  Part 2 can be found here. Skellies! After jamming open the portcullis in the room to the north, the PCs advanced to another room filled with 6 animated (and armed) skeletons!  As soon as […]

Filed Under: Campaign Logs, Musings of the Chatty DM, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: Sword and Wizardry

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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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