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

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

Mouse Guard Diaries: Delivering the Mail, Part 4, Finale

December 23, 2009 by The Chatty DM

Player Turn: In the player turn, each player gets to spend a free ‘token’ called a ‘check’ to do one thing, of his own choosing, like  recovering from a negative condition, playing a scene to achieve an unmet goal or interact with the story in some way.  Players each get 1 free check.  They can […]

Filed Under: Musings of the Chatty DM, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: Game Demo, Mouse Guard

Mouse Guard Diaries: Delivering the Mail, Part 3

December 22, 2009 by The Chatty DM

Fight at Raven’s Hollow With a failed Pathfinder’s check, I moved to the adventure’s first plot twist.  In a home brewed adventure, the GM would have had the choice of creating a plot twist or letting the PCs succeed but gain a negative condition liked ‘Angry, Sick, Injured’.  From my understanding, the GM is encouraged […]

Filed Under: Musings of the Chatty DM, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: Game Demo, Mouse Guard

Mouse Guard Diaries: Delivering the Mail, Part 2

December 22, 2009 by The Chatty DM

The Players I had 4 players attending this Mouse Guard game: Yan: Legendary fiddler and king of crunch. Yan expects fast interaction with the game, be it Story or dice rolling.  Patience incarnate he is not. 🙂 Franky: Our groups most eager storyteller and explorer.  Give him a new setting and story hooks and he’ll […]

Filed Under: Musings of the Chatty DM, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: Game Demo, Mouse Guard

Mouse Guard Diaries: Delivering the Mail, Part 1, Mini-Review/Primer

December 21, 2009 by The Chatty DM

I’ve long said that I was a mono-gamist.  I heavily invest myself in one game system and I spent most of my free time on it.  The fact that many consider this blog to be a D&D 4e blog lends strong support to that assertion.   But lately, maybe because I’m well past my mid-30s, […]

Filed Under: Musings of the Chatty DM, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: Game Demo, Mouseguard

Happy Birthday Love!

December 19, 2009 by The Chatty DM

It’s become a tradition on this blog to wish the woman of my life a happy birthday.  She’ll turn XX+1 tomorrow (Sunday). This year has been a  particularly trying one for us and I’m eternally grateful that we made it through intact.  I owe a lot of it to Alex’s resilience and willingness to believe in us and […]

Filed Under: Musings of the Chatty DM, Roleplaying Games

Don’t Touch That! A Winter Solstice Tale

December 17, 2009 by The Chatty DM

Last week, Wizards of the Coast posted a contest on their community site (which many of us call Wizbook). The contest is still open for a few days (until December 21st actually) and so far only 2 entries were sent in, mine and my friend Dave: The Game of Critical Hits fame. Entrants can win […]

Filed Under: Adventure Prep, Musings of the Chatty DM, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: 4e, holiday encounter contest, traps

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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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