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

Tales of the City Within: a 5X5 Sandbox experiment.

June 23, 2009 by The Chatty DM

Summer is upon us and that usually means that our bi-monthly D&D become less formal.  Attendance tends to fluctuate wildly and our play sessions are usually shorter. In past years, we’ve used the summer period to test out new games or new PCs. This year, most of my players have manifested an interest to keep […]

Filed Under: Adventure Prep, Musings of the Chatty DM Tagged With: 4e, Chatty's 2009 Summer Campaign, Primal/Within, Tropes

Happy Birthday Skill Challenge

June 22, 2009 by The Chatty DM

Last week, my good friend Dave of Critical Hits and RPGblogger’s Network fame asked me to write a little note for his girlfriend’s (‘e’ of Geeks’ Dream Girl) birthday. Being overly Chatty and prone to a certain dose of creative crazyness, I decided to all out geek and delivered the following Birthday Challenge! Wish Her […]

Filed Under: Geek Stuff, Musings of the Chatty DM, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: 4e, Humor

Friday Chat: Dealing with Storytellers

June 18, 2009 by The Chatty DM

In my discussions with several readers and friends, I noticed that many RPG group are divided into two broad categories of gamers.  One one side you have your min/maxed, Butt kicking power gamers who are on the lookout for the next fight.  On the other you have the psychodrama-loving story-starved  players who only truly become […]

Filed Under: Musings of the Chatty DM, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: advice, Friday Chat, Player Psychology

Random Thoughts Table: Dungeon Crawling through New Monster

June 18, 2009 by The Chatty DM

Goodman Games wants you! With the economy taking a bad turn, many gaming companies are having a hard time getting sufficient volunteers for their various Gen Con events. As some of you may know, I will be among the DMs referees of the Goodman Games Dungeon Crawl Classic tournament held this year at the Indianapolis […]

Filed Under: Musings of the Chatty DM, Roleplaying Games

Primal/Within Chronicles: A Master’s Wrath, Part 2

June 17, 2009 by The Chatty DM

See part 1 here. Plot Exposition break Before jumping in the suspended portal standing 15′ over the 1st floor, the PCs rested for a few minutes and searched the Wizard’s lair.  They found that the mad mage had recently abandoned his work on creating enhanced monsters and started focusing on portals. His various research notes […]

Filed Under: Campaign Logs, Musings of the Chatty DM, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: 4e, Chatty's 2008-2009 campaign, Megadungeon, Primal/Within, Tropes

Primal/Within Chronicles: A Master’s Wrath, Part 1

June 16, 2009 by The Chatty DM

Summer always makes gaming a bit harder.  Getting a full group of players becomes a challenge and usually, by the time June hits, I’m well into my annual DM burnout. Weirdly enough, I don’t feel burned out this year.  This is mostly because our current Primal/Withing campaign is so damn fun. This week I found […]

Filed Under: Campaign Logs, Musings of the Chatty DM, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: 4e, Chatty's 2008-2009 campaign, Primal/Within

The Dungeon Reality Show PDF is available now!

June 12, 2009 by The Chatty DM

Fighting my own Nerd projectitis, I spent all day today putting all Dungeon Reality Show: Dungeon Ball Edition posts into a single PDF. You can find it here free of charge, my gift to you dear readers. I hope that some of you try the adventure and have fun with it. I will also post […]

Filed Under: Musings of the Chatty DM, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: 4e/Bloodbowl mashup, Dungeon Reality Show

Friday Chat: Nerd Projectitis

June 11, 2009 by The Chatty DM

(I’m posting this early to get our Euro/Asia/Down Under friends to comment) Way back when, I posted about the Nerd Handbook, a must-read article for all geeks and their significant others. The post starts with the following sentence: A nerd needs a project because a nerd builds stuff. All the time So true!  However, I’m […]

Filed Under: Geek Stuff, Musings of the Chatty DM, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: Friday Chat, Nerd Projectitis

Chatty on 4e: One year later

June 10, 2009 by The Chatty DM

A little more than a year ago, as excitement (and hype) was building around the 4th edition of Dungeons and Dragons, I wrote a series a posts based on what I thought D&D 4e would be about. Nostalgia vs Fun Retro Stupid vs Retro-Stupid I Hearth Grapple Schooled by the Old Combat School Exploration vs […]

Filed Under: Musings of the Chatty DM, Roleplaying Games

The Dungeon Reality Show: Blood Bowl Edition

June 9, 2009 by The Chatty DM

Over a period of 3 weeks, I wrote a series of post about making one-shot D&D adventures where PCs are drafted into some kind of deadly reality show on the Plane of Games.  The response to the series was very positive so I’m planning to release it as a free PDF in the near future. […]

Filed Under: Musings of the Chatty DM, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: 4e, 4e/Bloodbowl mashup, Dungeon Reality Show

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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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