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You are here: Home / Archives for The Chatty DM

The Stages of a RPG Team's Development, Part 4: Norming

September 27, 2007 by The Chatty DM

We continue with the third topic in this discussion on the life stages of a RPG gaming group that borrows heavily on the work place team development concept. So far we covered the definition of a RPG Team, it’s forming stage and the harsher storming stage. When the storm becomes unbearable there are two choices […]

Filed Under: Musings of the Chatty DM, Player Psychology, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: DMing, The 4 stages

Random Thoughts Table: Adaptation Blues, Deaths and Grappling

September 27, 2007 by The Chatty DM

Image Source: Necromancer games’ Mother of all Encounter Tables. It’s Thursday and as I’ve seen a surge in reading on that day, what better time to serve a post of mini-musings? I’m playing tomorrow and I’m taking the evening off from prepping and blogging to recharge my mental batteries before the game. But as I […]

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

Let's sweeten all that Crunch with some Sweet20

September 26, 2007 by The Chatty DM

Image Source: Chatty DM’s game room It’s no secret, since the seventies, D&D has arguably been mostly about two things: Kill Stuff Take their loot A lot of people were content with that (and still are). I have been for a long time. However, as I played D&D 3.0, and later 3.5, I realized that […]

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

Dive in this bowl of Crunchy Hit points

September 25, 2007 by The Chatty DM

Image Source: Do I really need to? 🙂 I’m prepping this week’s game tonight so I’ll keep the post a bit on the short side. Greywulf commented on this post earlier today* and shared his most excellent tricks to save time in RPG combats (dude, I’m like Keanu now, whoa!) One of his tricks literally […]

Filed Under: Musings of the Chatty DM, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: Crunch, DMing, Tropes

Mining Tropes for RPG nuggets: Let them see the light.

September 24, 2007 by The Chatty DM

Image Source: D&D 3.5 Monster Manual This is part of a series of articles that tackles the concepts of tropes and how they can be applied by a DM/GM to improve their favorite Role-Playing game adventures. It is heavily inspired by the sheer goodness of the TV Tropes Wiki. “I’m sorry, you’ve never faced a […]

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

The craziest, shortest, game I ever wrote/ran.

September 23, 2007 by The Chatty DM

Image Source: Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho Martin over at Treasure Tables had a recent post asking DMs what were ideal gaming sessions and the shortest ones we’re comfortable running (Quick Answer, 4 hours, 2 hours). That made me think of the shortest, craziest one-shot game I ever GMed. It was right before D&D 3.0 and, like […]

Filed Under: Musings of the Chatty DM, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: DMing, rule of cool, Tropes

Nothing kills a fight faster than starting a combat.

September 23, 2007 by The Chatty DM

Image Source: Fiery Dragon Productions A few months ago, while reading the most excellent, and sadly concluded, DM of the Rings webcomic, I came upon a very inspiring strip. I wrote a forum post about it but I’d like to re-edit it here instead of letting it fall off the 20th page. Shamus’ cynical comments […]

Filed Under: Geek Stuff, Musings of the Chatty DM, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: DMing

Meet the players!: Eric

September 23, 2007 by The Chatty DM

Image Source: Ubi Soft’s Prince of Persia, The Two Thrones Two weeks ago, I sent a questionnaires like this one to my 5 D&D players. I got 4 responses so far and I’m posting the 2nd one today, along with my usual editorial comments. What character do you play in our current D&D campaign? (Name, […]

Filed Under: Musings of the Chatty DM, Player Psychology, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: Community, Player Profile

Has it been 2 months already?

September 22, 2007 by The Chatty DM

Image Source: Old-translated-to-French Manga called Mini-Fée. Yax and the Stupid Ranger crew (Stupid Ranger,Vanir and Dante) celebrated their 2 months on the blogosphere earlier this month and it made me realize that I started at about the same time. Woot, 2 months, 60-some posts (I ain’t called Chatty for nothing!) , 2000 total page views […]

Filed Under: Musings of the Chatty DM

The Stages of a RPG Team's Development, Part 3: Storming

September 21, 2007 by The Chatty DM

Let’s forge onwards in this ‘D&D and Workplace teams are similar’ analogy. With the four stages of a team’s development concept, we’ve covered the introduction and the forming of a new RPG gaming group. Now onwards to the choppy waters of a Storming group. Storming Half the players are reading from their manual, fiddling their […]

Filed Under: Musings of the Chatty DM, Player Psychology, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: DMing, The 4 stages

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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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