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

Primal/Within: Showdown at the Castle of the Overmind, Part 1

November 29, 2009 by The Chatty DM

(This post covers my last two D&D 4e games) Last Friday we concluded our longest D&D 4e campaign yet, clocking it somewhere between 16 and 20 game sessions (almost one year). In order to make posts length easier to manage, here’s the ultra condensed story. Campaign Finale: Redux Using a mysterious 4 part key collected […]

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

Cross-Class Training II: The Teaching DM

November 26, 2009 by The Chatty DM

Happy thanksgiving to all my American readers!  Deep friend Turbaconducken anyone? I tend to have a one track mind, so while I’m done teaching my MS-Outlook/Time Management class, it’s still very much on my mind. Just so you know, things went so well that the College’s director offered me to teach another course right after […]

Filed Under: Musings of the Chatty DM, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: advice, Real life

Cross-Class Training: GMs, Teachers & Managers

November 22, 2009 by The Chatty DM

As many of you know, I’ve spent most of the last week preparing a 2 day MS-Outlook 2007/Time Management course that I’ll be teaching  Tuesday and Wednesday of this week for a local College. While I was prepping for it, building an outline for each topics I decided to cover, I realized just how similar […]

Filed Under: Musings of the Chatty DM, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: advice, Real life

Campaign Genesis: Gears of Ruin

November 19, 2009 by The Chatty DM

I’m taking a short break from my course prep to share with you some of the brainstorming that is shaping my newest D&D 4e campaign.  Last week, when I pre-pitched my D&D adventure ideas for Dungeon Magazine, one of the ideas that wasn’t retained ‘as is’ was a clockwork fantasy adventure. It’s not that the […]

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

The State of Chatty: Fall 2009 Edition

November 16, 2009 by The Chatty DM

Disclamer, this is not a RPG post, at least not directly.  I’m going to update readers about the state of my project and my general health. I usually always write these posts when I’m in the throes of some sort of crisis or from the depths of depression.  Well I’m happy to tell you that […]

Filed Under: Freelance Writing, Musings of the Chatty DM

Campaign Weariness: Ending a campaign before its time

November 12, 2009 by The Chatty DM

As I hinted in my last game report, I feel the urge to move on from our Primal Dungeon/City Within campaign.  At 15 sessions so far, this has been the longest Mini-campaign I’ve played since we started 4e.  While I think the setting is ripe for more adventures, I feel like creating/exploring a new micro-setting […]

Filed Under: Musings of the Chatty DM, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: 4e, advice, Campaign Management

Turning D&D 4e’s Economy on its Head

November 9, 2009 by The Chatty DM

I love 4e with a passion that my geek-fueled prose has expressed numerous times on various platforms. However, after having played for more than one year, I must say that I really dislike the treasure attribution mechanics and the economics underlying them.   Spending time choosing magic items for my players and placing huge amounts of […]

Filed Under: Musings of the Chatty DM, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: 4e, Advive, treasure parcels

Mouse Guard Diaries: The First Duel

November 9, 2009 by The Chatty DM

Oh yes, another series 🙂 Last night my friend PM dropped by the house for an impromptu geekout.  We had a great session of armchair producing of potential remakes of Star Wars  over Pizza and beer.  We than played a game of Carcassone (loved it) and Dominion with Nico (my son won at Dominion, again). […]

Filed Under: Campaign Logs, Musings of the Chatty DM Tagged With: Mouseguard

City of the Overmind: Nipples of Chaos, Part 2

November 6, 2009 by The Chatty DM

See part 1 here. Cursed item to the rescue! The session’s first scene was eventually concluded with the adventure more or less back on track. We had a 20′ tall Flaming Angel instead of a draconic blob.  I was cool with that.  Heck, I would have been happy with the Marshmallow Colossus from Ghostbusters as […]

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

City of the Overmind: The Nipples of Chaos, Part 1

November 4, 2009 by The Chatty DM

Chatty DM (wiping laughter tears ):  Guys! Enough with the nipple jokes!  I think I’m going to put that into the game report’s title. Mike: You’d never dare, this stuff is always left out your reports. Chatty DM: Just watch me… This last game session was a strange, strange beast.  On the one hand, we […]

Filed Under: Campaign Logs, Musings of the Chatty DM, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: 4e, Chatty's 2009-2010 Campaign, City Adventures, Primal/Within

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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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