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You are here: Home / Archives for Newest Critical Hits / Columns

DM Chronicles, Session 1: Harsh Beginnings

August 26, 2007 by The Chatty DM

This series will be a DM-centric log of my current D&D campaign, it will not be an attempt at telling a story so much as being a ‘lessons learned’ tool for me to reflect on what was good and what wasn’t so good in the last session. It will be mostly about game mechanics, design […]

Filed Under: Campaign Logs, Musings of the Chatty DM, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: 3.5e, Chatty's 2007-2008 campaign, DMing

Interplannar adventures

August 24, 2007 by The Chatty DM

Warning, Spoilers for Monte Cook’s Ptolus d20 setting. Safe for my players to read. I’ve been wishing to do a multiplanar campaign for a long time. A D&D 2nds edition was the period I had left that game for the crunchiness and detail of Gurps. So I missed out on Planescape, having touched it only […]

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

Recent DMing stuff from the Bloggoshere

August 22, 2007 by The Chatty DM

Instead of writing new DMstuff, why not link to interesting things other people have to say on the subject of DMing? Danny (Bartoneous) from Critical-hits talks about how to end a gaming session. I agree that Cliffhangers are a great way to end a D&D gaming night. I’ll further add* that Cliffhangers are sometimes hard […]

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

A campaign's 1st session

August 18, 2007 by The Chatty DM

It’s getting nearer. We should be starting our new (last?) D&D 3.5 campaign next Friday night. Now one of the 5 players as already said he’d be missing, I so hope that no one else will be missing as I designed the 1st session based on the strength of the whole party. It’s not a […]

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

The Case for Fourth Edition

August 17, 2007 by Dave

Wizards of the Coast has gone and done it. They’ve announced that Dungeons & Dragons Fourth Edition will be released mid-year 2008. And I’m totally pumped. Marketing and digital stuff aside, looking through what the announcements are consisting of, it’s clear to me that Wizards is concerned about game design. And not just about fixing […]

Filed Under: Critical Threats, Editorial, Roleplaying Games

D&D 4th Edition

August 17, 2007 by The Chatty DM

There, they’ve finally done it. D&D 4th edition comes out next year (in May). I’m really angry because I bought a shitload of D&D 3.0/3.5 books (I mean I have a whole bookcase full of them) and I know that most mechanics in them will become useless. I’m not saying Wizards is evil and money […]

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

The Rule of the modern Blog

August 16, 2007 by The Chatty DM

I’ve been reading blogs for about 2 years if you count Webcomics newsposts. I’ve also read that a lot of people got in trouble because of their own blogs (Lost thier jobs usually). I would love to find the links but I’m lazy and I don’t want to spend that much time on this. So […]

Filed Under: Musings of the Chatty DM

A Compedium of Critical Threat Worthy Posts 8/10/7

August 10, 2007 by Dave

Here’s a few articles that I’ve been reading over the past few weeks that I highly recommend for any of you in the field of thinking about games or even just those with an interest in games.

Filed Under: Board, Card, and Miniature Games, Critical Threats, Roleplaying Games, Video Games

Who You Calling Heavy?

August 10, 2007 by Dave

Over on Boardgamegeek, you’ll see plenty of references to weight. And I’m not talking about the size of the players. Games tend to be divided in a spectrum from Light to Heavy among the BGG ratings. Something like Coloretto, or the great Loopin’ Louie is in the light category. Light-Medium includes such favorites as Ticket […]

Filed Under: Board, Card, and Miniature Games, Critical Threats

Review: "The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay"

August 9, 2007 by Dave

Title: The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay Author: Michael Chabon Year of Publication: 2000 Genre: Fiction Length: 656 Rating: 4/5 – Worth paying full price. I was first clued in to the existence of “The Escapist” via a limited comic series written by Brian K. Vaughn. The story was good, but I knew I […]

Filed Under: Comics, Librarian's Tome, Reviews

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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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