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You are here: Home / Archives for Newest Critical Hits / Columns / Musings of the Chatty DM

Chatty makes a Killing in Open Gaming Table #2’s nominations

January 20, 2010 by The Chatty DM

I’m still in Florida, getting my head happily baked while my children play in the pool and get their feet frozen in the Atlantic. I got an idea a few minutes ago.  A few days ago, Jonathan Jacobs posted the list of the 375 blog posts nominated for possible inclusion on the second Open Game […]

Filed Under: Musings of the Chatty DM, Roleplaying Games

Gone South, will be back Jan 25th

January 14, 2010 by The Chatty DM

I’m leaving for a one week vacation tomorrow.  I’ll be driving to Burlington Airport tomorrow night (a 2 hour drive), sleep over there and have fun with the TSA’s security rules from 4h30 AM onwards on Saturday morning to eventually land in Orlando somewhere around noon.  We’ll be spending a few days with the Dire […]

Filed Under: Musings of the Chatty DM

Gears of Ruin: Session 1, Revolutions per Machines, Part 3

January 13, 2010 by The Chatty DM

See part 1 and part 2. First Contact This combat encounter had 3 goals: Give players a fairly challenging fight to give them a better feel for their PCs’ powers. Set a hostile first contact with mechanical monsters, in this case some undead warforged (you read that right) Spring  a surprise on the player by […]

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

Gears of Ruin: Session 1, Revolutions per Machines, Part 2

January 11, 2010 by The Chatty DM

See part 1 here. Get me some Competence Porn, stat! The first scene had a few goals.  Introduce the PCs to the first important NPCs of the campaign, give them a quest for the night, but more importantly, make them look good! The scene started with the PCs waiting to be summoned to show up […]

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

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

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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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