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You are here: Home / Archives for Newest Critical Hits

Gears of Ruin: The Ruiner’s Gambit, Session 1, Part 4

February 14, 2010 by The Chatty DM

The Titan Clank hit by the Avenger’s abjure undead power was eventually bloodied. In a cloud of greasy smoke, it stopped functioning and let out a badly battered undead humanoid made of mismatched stitched parts! It was wearing some sort of military leather harness filled with poisoned knives!

Filed Under: Campaign Logs, Musings of the Chatty DM, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: 4e, Chatty's 2009-2010 Campaign, Gears of Ruin

Critical Bits for the week ending 2010-02-14

February 14, 2010 by Gato the News Robot

Updated: Character Class Reference with PHB3 classes http://is.gd/7SU2d and Character Race Reference with PHB3/ Dark Sun http://is.gd/7SU5Q # Roleplaying Games as Tools for Story Telling http://is.gd/80SWc # RT @ATerribleIdea: Special Valentine's Day sale: Shambles $5.00 – Show how you love them by trying to eat their brains. http://bit.ly/aHhE4Z # RT @Wizards_DnD: Not sure what's in […]

Filed Under: Critical Bits Tagged With: twitter

Ecology of an Icon: The Ultimate Team

February 12, 2010 by guest

Bursting forth through an eruption of turf and soil, an iconic visage bears down upon its prey with terrifying speed and precision. The Umber Hulk mounted Bullette (referred to as the Umber Bullette) has been an iconic presence within the RPG world for years now, but how these two seemingly savage and completely different creatures came to coexist has only recently come to light.

Filed Under: Featured, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: bulette, mascot, ultimate team, umber hulk

From Talking Heads to Downloadable Endings: Modern Console RPG Trends

February 11, 2010 by guest

Video games have been found to be such a tappable market for moneymaking that EA having a bad fiscal quarter affects the entire Dow Jones. It’s not a few guys in a basement anymore, its a CEO and boardroom environment now. The “suits” making the decisions on the games you play aren’t pushing the limitations of anyone’s imagination, instead they only care about how a game affects an earnings report. Because of this sad fact, there are too many questionable trends happening in gaming, and this year doesn’t forecast to be much different

Filed Under: Editorial, Video Games Tagged With: borderlands, chrono trigger, earthbound, fallout 3, final fantasy, final fantasy tactics, mass effect, mass effect 2, Rant, spore, sports games

Gears of Ruin: The Ruiner’s Gambit, Session 1, Part 3

February 11, 2010 by The Chatty DM

The Wrath of Melora tackles the Claw, Hollywood style and takes on the Titan Clanks while his buddies are being pummelled relentlessly.

Filed Under: Campaign Logs, Musings of the Chatty DM, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: 4e, Chatty's 2009-2010 Campaign, Gears of Ruin

Let Me Tell You About My Campaign: Age of Awakening

February 10, 2010 by Bartoneus

About two months ago Dave decided to tell you about his campaign – the setting, world, how it all began, characters, planning, and some of his house rules. He set me up to share about my campaign also, as a large part of planning for both of our games was done together. In fact his game is being run in a world that I designed and handed over for him to take and expand upon as he saw fit.

Filed Under: Editorial, Featured, Roleplaying Games, The Architect DM Tagged With: campaign, D&D, DM, DMing, dnd 4e, dungeon master, dungeon mastering, Dungeons and Dragons, roleplaying games, Roleplaying Games, world building

Gears of Ruin: The Ruiner’s Gambit’, Session 1, Part 2

February 10, 2010 by The Chatty DM

As stated in Part 1, the first combat encounter was designed to be among the hardest hitting encounter my players had yet faced in D&D 4e while still being designed with an XP budget that somewhere between level 15 and 16 (the PCs are still 14th). The goal was to totally challenge the PCs while having monsters close in levels to the PC (from 12-16) without having the players clamour for an extended rest right after.

Filed Under: Campaign Logs, Musings of the Chatty DM, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: 4e, Chatty's 2009-2010 Campaign, Gears of Ruin

Two Scoops

February 9, 2010 by Vanir

In the immortal words of Muse, from the book of Cydonia: “Don’t waste your time or time will waste you.”

Filed Under: Dire Flailings, Roleplaying Games, Science Fiction & Fantasy Genre, Video Games Tagged With: atari 2600, bioware, elcor, fun factor, lolelcor, mass effect, mass effect 2, xenofeces

Inq. of the Week: Gotta Mutate ‘Em All

February 8, 2010 by Dave

While reports leaked out ahead of time, it was the D&D Experience convention where a full announcement was made about a new edition of the Gamma World RPG, based on the 4e D&D rules. During the announcement came one major surprise: they would make random “booster packs” available to supplement the mutations that happen in the radiation soaked Gamma World and the ancient technology that waits to be discovered.

Filed Under: Board, Card, and Miniature Games, Editorial, Featured, Inquisition of the Week, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: 4e, D&DXP, ddxp2010, gamma world, magic the gathering

Gears of Ruin: The Ruiner’s Gambit, Session 1, Part 1

February 8, 2010 by The Chatty DM

Last Friday’s adventure was great. It was mostly a 3 hour+ set-piece fight but I wanted to duke it out with the players in a no-holds barred slugfest. I cranked damage dealing to the absolute maximum I could without breaking the rules (a design goal of mine). I also did my best to screw with their game plan and use plenty of dirty tricks to give them their greatest challenge in months.

Filed Under: Campaign Logs, Musings of the Chatty DM, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: 4e, Chatty's 2009-2010 Campaign, Gears of Ruins

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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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