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

Minimum Session Prep: Listen

August 11, 2009 by guest

Hi, I’m Brent P. Newhall, and I feel bad about this post.  I originally promised Chatty a post aimed at newbie DMs, describing the absolute minimum prep needed for a D&D 4th Edition session.  And while I’ll cover that, I realized there’s a bigger issue that needs to be addressed. The amount of preparation required […]

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

Dude, You Gotta Try Mutant Future!

August 10, 2009 by guest

WalkerP is the co-host and producer of The RPG Haven Podcast. Check out the latest episode on how to enjoy GenCon when you can’t actually go. I would like to thank ChattyDM for giving me this opportunity to share my love for Mutant Future with you. I think it’s great that he is having guest posters […]

Filed Under: Musings of the Chatty DM, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: Guest Post, Mutant Future

Chatty’s Gen Con Plans

August 6, 2009 by The Chatty DM

There’s an unexpected  hole in my Guest post schedule, my Gen Con prep is finally done and I miss talking to you all, so I thought I’d share my convention plans. This is going to be my second attendance in as many years.  Last time I came to the Con thinking I was a nobody […]

Filed Under: blogging, Musings of the Chatty DM, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: Gen Con 2009

Silly DM, minor quests are for players

August 5, 2009 by guest

About a year ago, I read a post about sharing narrative control with players over on Gnome Stew that just blew my mind. After my initial reaction of “Are you kidding me? The DM is the narrator, end of story,” I realized that I already did some narrative sharing because I encouraged the players to […]

Filed Under: Musings of the Chatty DM, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: 4e, Dungeons and Dragons, major quests, minor quests, narrative control, player narrative

But my father was a blacksmith! – Crafting in 4E

August 4, 2009 by guest

Hi there.  My name is Rob, a.k.a. “A Hero”, from A Hero Twice A Month.  While I can be a chatty DM at times, I am not the ChattyDM.  Still, he was nice enough to let me post my thoughts about crafting items while he is off on his GenCon hiatus. When the game designers […]

Filed Under: Game Hacks & Content, Musings of the Chatty DM, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: 4e, advice

Handling A Legion Of Padded Supermen

August 3, 2009 by Wyatt Salazar

Hi there everyone, this is Wyatt Salazar, the world’s only biological nuclear reactor (CAUTION CAUTION) from The Spirits of Eden and now also The Amusing Fantasy, standing in for the Chatty DM who’s currently questing for Gen Con, as you know. He still has plenty of healing surges and daily powers left and I wish […]

Filed Under: Musings of the Chatty DM, Roleplaying Games

The One Page Dungeon Codex (and More!)

July 31, 2009 by The Chatty DM

For those too excited to read: The One Page Dungeon Codex 2009 The Combined One Page Dungeons These last few weeks, Chgowiz and I have been working at delivering on our promise of creating a special PDF file that brought together the very best entries from the contest One Page Dungeon contest. Well the wait […]

Filed Under: Musings of the Chatty DM, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: one page dungeon

I Didn’t Know You Could Do That With 4E: Adventure-Length Effects

July 31, 2009 by guest

Hey everybody!  My name is Brad Gardner.  I’m a long time D&D player.  Currently I’m DMing a game for some friends (The “Savage Tide” adventure path, converted to 4E) as well as writing for the RPGA’s Living Forgotten Realms campaign.  As of GenCon 2009, I’ll have the privilege of having five adventures published for the […]

Filed Under: Musings of the Chatty DM, Roleplaying Games

For new GMs: Worldbuilding is storytelling: complication, complexity, micronarratives, and your precious little fantasy world-baby

July 30, 2009 by guest

It’s the autism-spectrum version of playing god: surveying charts and tables and lists and believing, for just a moment, that a world can be contained in such a form. Elves and dragons are less unbelievable than that power fantasy.

Filed Under: Musings of the Chatty DM, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: advice, world building

Gen Con Hiatus Update: Guest Post Galore and Critical Hits!

July 29, 2009 by The Chatty DM

I got an incredible response to my call for guest posters and we’ve already started posting!  In fact,  I already have 2 posts more ready to be posted and the schedule is almost full! Speaking of guest posts, have you seen the one I did for Critical Hits yet?  I took Dave’s excellent 5X5 campaign […]

Filed Under: Musings of the Chatty DM, Roleplaying Games

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