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Critical Bits for the week ending 2012-07-15

July 15, 2012 by Gato the News Robot

RT @BoardgameNews: BGG News: Kingdom Builder Wins the 2012 Spiel des Jahres; Village Takes Kennerspiel des Jahres http://t.co/JG8iKLal # Wizards of the Coast announced cancellation of Virtual Tabletop: http://t.co/d3Dx8JkZ # RT @GameTableOnline: GameTable Online is planning to adopt the Virtual Table. http://t.co/C5UMl8Mm! # 2011 Dice Tower Awards winners announced: http://t.co/dI9cuJ9C # RT @mikemearls: We unearthed […]

Filed Under: Critical Bits Tagged With: twitter

2012 ENnie Award Nominations Announced

July 13, 2012 by Dave

The 2012 ENnie Award nominations are out, if you haven’t heard. Just as in previous years, here’s my thoughts on some of the nominees, particularly the ones that I’ve read or played.

Filed Under: Featured, News, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: ennie awards, ennies, gen con, gencon

Zen and the Art of Dungeon Mastering #3: Mind your Players’ Styles, Part 4 of 4

July 13, 2012 by The Chatty DM

Chatty concludes his four part sub-series (and hits his 900th post) about helping DMs understand what motivate their players and how to tap into this to make a more satisfying game for all. In this article, chatty discusses Lurking and Instigating play styles and also broaches the subject of selfish players.

Filed Under: Featured, Musings of the Chatty DM, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: advice, D&D, DM, DMing, DMing Advice, dungeon master, Zen and the Art of DMing

Zen and the Art of Dungeon Mastering #3: Mind Your Players’ Styles, Part 3 of 4

July 11, 2012 by The Chatty DM

Chatty’s series on adapting a DM’s natural style to take into account those of his players continue with three more set of player motivations: Specialty Characters, Method Acting and Storyteling. Don’t miss it!

Filed Under: Featured, Roleplaying Games, Science Fiction & Fantasy Genre Tagged With: advice, D&D, DM, DMing, DMing Advice, dungeon master, Zen and the Art of DMing

Schrödinger’s Virtual Tabletop

July 10, 2012 by Vanir

WotC announced yesterday that they’ll be shutting down their lukewarmly-popular Virtual Tabletop application that let people play (*gasp*) over the Internets. Of course, now those same Internets are on fire with all sorts of FUD and vitriol about how WotC is out of touch and predictions on how long before WotC sells the company to Paizo (obviously the clear winner of the online/tabletop RPG arms race). I’m not really upset about this. Why? You have to read the rest of the article for that, silly.

Filed Under: Dire Flailings, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: beta, CALM DOWN OMG, closing, D&D, d&d 4e, D&D next, virtual tabletop, vtt

Zen and the Art of Dungeon Mastering #3: Mind Your Players’ Styles, Part 2 of 4

July 9, 2012 by The Chatty DM

In which Chatty tackles three well-established playing styles (Power Gaming, Butt Kicking and Tactics) and shares advice to tweak encounters to take them into account.

Filed Under: Featured, Musings of the Chatty DM, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: advice, D&D, DM, DMing, DMing Advice, dungeon master, Zen and the Art of DMing

Critical Bits for the week ending 2012-07-08

July 8, 2012 by Gato the News Robot

RT @TheIdDM: Combat Speed in D&D Next http://t.co/iM3rchsk Preliminary data collected during a #dndnext playtest session. #dnd #rpg # Summoner Wars for iOS released: http://t.co/pWuNgBTo As previewed in our Origins report: http://t.co/DRjUUuiX # RT @mikemearls: Our ENnies dream date auction is up – play D&D with Chris Perkins! http://t.co/EtqzY2jy #

Filed Under: Critical Bits Tagged With: twitter

Portrait of a Card Addict as a Young Man

July 6, 2012 by Dave

After over 10 years clean, only playing the occasional draft in the meantime, I’ve gotten back into Magic: The Gathering, in a pretty big way. I’ve played in the last three prereleases held by my FLGS, and am playing another one this Saturday for the release of Magic 2013 core set. I’ve started playing both drafts at the FLGS, and organizing them at home. Perhaps most shockingly of all, I’ve pushed to play Magic at days when we could be doing other gaming like board games or RPGs. The bug has bit hard.

Filed Under: Board, Card, and Miniature Games, Critical Threats Tagged With: magic the gathering

Zen and the Art of Dungeon Mastering #3: Mind your Players’ Styles, Part 1 of 4

July 5, 2012 by The Chatty DM

Chatty’s new Back-to-Basics DMing series continues by tackling a cornerstone issue of understanding and catering to what bring (and keeps) players at your gaming table.

Filed Under: Featured, Musings of the Chatty DM, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: advice, D&D, DM, DMing, DMing Advice, dungeon master, Zen and the Art of DMing

Making Better Lives Through Genuine Threats Of Death

July 3, 2012 by Vanir

Though I’ve started to find my voice in recent months as a Dungeon Master, there is still a lot of undiscovered ground for me to cover. How to come up with named on the fly that don’t end in “eeberbeeb”. How to keep one lonely alligator tear from rolling down my cheek as my best laid plans are turned to slag. And, of course, how to kill the entire party. That’s right. I’m a TPK virgin.

Filed Under: Dire Flailings, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: dead alive, dead rising, Death, death of a salesman, night of the living dead, party death, Pelor, player death, TPK, val kilmer, weekend at bernie's, zombies

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    GATO the News Robot collects all the updates on our Twitter Feed and collects them into a weekly post. He also has metal joints.

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