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

Robin's Laws Revisited: Part 1, The Rule 0 of DMing

January 7, 2008 by The Chatty DM

At the eve of my 25th RPG/GMing birthday, I’m actually reading something I told myself I’d read but never did up till now: The award winning Robin’s Laws of Good Game Mastering. (Copyright 2002 by Steve Jackson Games Inc). To say that it’s a good read for all DM/GM is an understatement and is well […]

Filed Under: Musings of the Chatty DM, Player Psychology, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: DMing, Robin Laws

Mini-Link: Non-RPG geekiness

January 7, 2008 by The Chatty DM

Since I actually posted today’s article yesterday morning, here’s a very short something about my non-RPG interests. Like a lot of tabletop RPG aficionados, I like geeky stuff. My favorites are about technology, vintage video games, movies, cool TV series and doing stuff with kids. So far my blog list for those is rather limited. […]

Filed Under: Geek Stuff, Musings of the Chatty DM Tagged With: Gaming with Kids, mini-post

Adventure Prep: Of Planescaping and High Intensity Hacking, Part 2

January 6, 2008 by The Chatty DM

I’m preparing for next Friday’s game, the year’s first, which will also coincide with a new campaign arc. I’ll also be marking my 35th birthday and my 25th year as a Dungeon/Game Master. Weeeee! Nostalgic Aside: My 1st dungeon was drawn on a piece of graph paper, was filled with death traps, had a White […]

Filed Under: Adventure Prep, Musings of the Chatty DM Tagged With: DMing

Mini-Prep: Just how little do you need to prep?

January 3, 2008 by The Chatty DM

That title brings back memories of my Internship in a Molecular Biology lab, before DNA isolation became automated. Anyway, yesterday’s post took more creative juice than originally planned. Today I’ll keep it shorter and turn the keyboard over to you earlier on (Andy, your new year’s recommendations are simmering in my noggin’ and will be […]

Filed Under: Adventure Prep, Musings of the Chatty DM Tagged With: mini-post

Mining Tropes for RPG Nuggets: I, Overlord!

January 2, 2008 by The Chatty DM

This post is part of a series exploring Tropes (recurrent plot devices and expectations in fiction) as applied to RPGs, see the growing collection of posts on the subject here. Now that Yax has fallen in my fiendish trap by accepting my Ennies challenge, I thought I’d start the ball rolling by finally tackling one […]

Filed Under: Musings of the Chatty DM, Roleplaying Games, Tropes Tagged With: Tropes

Chatty’s Review: Silvervine Chapter 1, First impressions

January 1, 2008 by The Chatty DM

This post is part of a series that tackles the reading review of a yet unpublished RPG called Silvervine. The 1st post, explaining what the review project sets to accomplish can be found here. Please note that game is still in development and my feedback is part of the creators’ efforts to make this the […]

Filed Under: Musings of the Chatty DM, Roleplaying Games

My New Year's goals

January 1, 2008 by The Chatty DM

I don’t do resolutions. Personally, resolutions always imply that I need to change something. The “need to change” expression seems to be guilt-laden (yeah, I was raised a catholic) and implies that the resolution will be hard to implement and/or unpleasant. What I do set for myself are goals. For me, a goal implies that […]

Filed Under: Musings of the Chatty DM, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: Community, DMing

Chatty's blog 1/2 year in review.

December 31, 2007 by The Chatty DM

In which Chatty DM rambles about the cool things brought on by blogging. On July 24th, 2007 after 2 failed attempts on MSN Space and Live Journal, I finally made a jump to blogging using Google’s Blogger.  Having no clear idea what to actually talk about, I started rambling about my future campaign, online tools, […]

Filed Under: Musings of the Chatty DM, Roleplaying Games

My D&D Flavour: House Rules for Badass Heroes.

December 30, 2007 by The Chatty DM

Tommi made a post suggestion in my last Adventure Prep post: “How about a brief summary of the house rules you use for those who have not read everything you have ever posted”? I’m happy to comply…. except for the brief part. 😀 The core of the rules we use is D&D 3.5 with a […]

Filed Under: Game Hacks & Content, Musings of the Chatty DM, Roleplaying Games

Holy Green Giant Clay Golem!

December 29, 2007 by The Chatty DM

This is a short mini-post just to showcase my latest D&D Miniature acquisitions. As I usually do, I buy 2 boosters of each and every D&D mini series they make. The latest one, Desert of Desolation is full of goodies for my future game sessions. Look a Bone Devil, a Spined Devil, a Fire elemental, […]

Filed Under: Geek Stuff, Musings of the Chatty DM Tagged With: mini-post, Rant

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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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