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You are here: Home / Archives for The Chatty DM

Online Tools, Take 2

August 30, 2007 by The Chatty DM

Last month I posted about software tools I planned on using in our current game. It turns out it worked a lot better than planned. All players joined the Google Group we created (see here for explanations on how it works) and I’m truly impressed by participation. Google Groups are basically a discussion group tool. […]

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

Maybe it's time for D&D 4e after all…

August 28, 2007 by The Chatty DM

Boy am I seeing a lot of hate and anger being spewed at the D&D 4e announcements (just try any forum: Enworld, Okay…Your Turn and RPGnet for a sample). I must confess that I also have been part of that strong resistance to change/Lashing-out-at-Hasbro’s- blatant-money -grab. But, but but… as I go through the motions […]

Filed Under: Musings of the Chatty DM, Roleplaying Games

The case against Spell Resistance

August 27, 2007 by The Chatty DM

This is a very D&D specific post. Yan, one of my long-time players has started playing his 1st D&D arcane spellcaster ever. One of his feedbacks from last Friday’s debacle was that Spell Resistance really stank from a player’s perspective. You wait for your turn, you fire your spell, you roll a number and if […]

Filed Under: Musings of the Chatty DM, Roleplaying Games

Where has the post-game funk gone?

August 27, 2007 by The Chatty DM

I don’t feel down at all about the bad game we had last Friday, I’m actually surprised at that. While bad sessions are a lot rarer than they were (switching from Gurps to D&D 3.0 was hard!), I often felt that it was finally time to hang my RPG skates after such a session. Even […]

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

DM Chronicles, Session 1: Harsh Beginnings

August 26, 2007 by The Chatty DM

This series will be a DM-centric log of my current D&D campaign, it will not be an attempt at telling a story so much as being a ‘lessons learned’ tool for me to reflect on what was good and what wasn’t so good in the last session. It will be mostly about game mechanics, design […]

Filed Under: Campaign Logs, Musings of the Chatty DM, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: 3.5e, Chatty's 2007-2008 campaign, DMing

Happy B'day Shamus

August 24, 2007 by The Chatty DM

Shamus Young of DM of the Ring fame turns 36 today. Happy Birthday man! You created something really big and cool and we appreciate you doing it for us. I’m really curious about what’s coming next. I speculate that it will be a RPG satire (confirmed) but probably based on his own gaming photos instead […]

Filed Under: Newest Critical Hits, Uncategorized

Interplannar adventures

August 24, 2007 by The Chatty DM

Warning, Spoilers for Monte Cook’s Ptolus d20 setting. Safe for my players to read. I’ve been wishing to do a multiplanar campaign for a long time. A D&D 2nds edition was the period I had left that game for the crunchiness and detail of Gurps. So I missed out on Planescape, having touched it only […]

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

Recent DMing stuff from the Bloggoshere

August 22, 2007 by The Chatty DM

Instead of writing new DMstuff, why not link to interesting things other people have to say on the subject of DMing? Danny (Bartoneous) from Critical-hits talks about how to end a gaming session. I agree that Cliffhangers are a great way to end a D&D gaming night. I’ll further add* that Cliffhangers are sometimes hard […]

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

A campaign's 1st session

August 18, 2007 by The Chatty DM

It’s getting nearer. We should be starting our new (last?) D&D 3.5 campaign next Friday night. Now one of the 5 players as already said he’d be missing, I so hope that no one else will be missing as I designed the 1st session based on the strength of the whole party. It’s not a […]

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

D&D 4th Edition

August 17, 2007 by The Chatty DM

There, they’ve finally done it. D&D 4th edition comes out next year (in May). I’m really angry because I bought a shitload of D&D 3.0/3.5 books (I mean I have a whole bookcase full of them) and I know that most mechanics in them will become useless. I’m not saying Wizards is evil and money […]

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

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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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