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

Battlestar Galactica

August 3, 2007 by The Chatty DM

I know I’m 3 years late but last night I sat down with my wife and popped the 1st disk of Season 1 of BSG. We were hooked after the 1st 5 minutes. I thought the 1st episode was a 2 hour pilot, turns out it was a 4 hour film!!!!!! Now I know why […]

Filed Under: Geek Stuff, Musings of the Chatty DM

Survival Guide to Florida

August 1, 2007 by Bartoneus

I apologize for my absence, I’ve been spending the whole week knee-deep in putrid water being eaten alive by the most vicious bugs since the plagues. At least that’s how I imagined Florida would be, even though I’ve been here many times before every time I anticipate the trip I cannot help but return to […]

Filed Under: The Architect DM

Ending a campaign

July 28, 2007 by The Chatty DM

Last night we played the last of a 2 sessions Nostaligia-ride that is the re-visiting of an old campaign. About 5 or so years ago, we started our second vanilla D&D campaign with level 1 PCs. Now I don’t exactly remember what players and what characters were there when we started. It started out as […]

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

Hidden Trackable

July 27, 2007 by Dave

As often happens, I found myself involved in a minor argument online. This is one of those arguments that can’t entirely chalked up to different tastes. “Hidden Trackable” refers to any element of the game that could be tracked by a player with a perfect memory (or pencil and paper) but is supposed to be […]

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

RPG Software

July 26, 2007 by The Chatty DM

I’m a complete and utter Geek (I scored Major Geek BTW) sometimes its a huge wonder that I actually got married, but then again, my lovely wife is also pretty up there on the geek scale. Anywho, being the geek that I am, I’ve always been fascinated by using computers to make my RPG games […]

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

Making a Campaing villain

July 25, 2007 by The Chatty DM

One of the 1st steps I do when I think about a new campaign is the Big Bad Guy. The too-often Shadowy hand that pulls the strings of the evil/insane/chaotic side of the game. Creating a good bad guy that will act as a motivator is not easy. If he’s too powerful early on in […]

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

Time to start a new Campaign

July 24, 2007 by The Chatty DM

I have been playing structured Role playing game like D&D and Gurps since I was barely 10. During the 1st year of playing that game I’ve discovered how much I liked being a DM. 24 years later, I’m still geeking out at the idea of starting a new campaign. We’ve been playing D&D 3.0/3.5 more […]

Filed Under: Musings of the Chatty DM, Player Psychology, Roleplaying Games

Blogging or bugging my friends?

July 24, 2007 by The Chatty DM

I’ve been thinking for a long time about starting a Blog, I got an account at Live Journal (Unfinished 1st Post) and another one at Microsoft (3 Posts, hate the interface). Since I have recently gone completely Googlely, I decided I might as well give Blogger a shot. Anyway, I think I have always been […]

Filed Under: Musings of the Chatty DM

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (No Book 7 Spoilers)

July 22, 2007 by The Main Event

For everyone traumatized by the recent ending of another era-defining work, The Sopranos, the anti-Sopranos ending of Harry Potter will be sure to satisfy you. It ends, and it ends definitively, and in my mind satisfactorily (though I was satisfied with The Sopranos as well). In the minds of fans, this book’s primary function is […]

Filed Under: Librarian's Tome, Reviews, Science Fiction & Fantasy Genre

Boardgame Design (Graphically, Of Course)

July 20, 2007 by Dave

With Origins out of the way, and none of us going to Comic-Con, we can get back to actually playing games and blogging. Of course, silly things like life are taking their toll on those two pursuits, but hopefully soon we’ll be back up and running at full force. One of those silly distractions has […]

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

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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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