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You are here: Home / Archives for Roleplaying Games

PDFs Want To Be Free

April 7, 2009 by Dave

While I’m a big proponent of open source and creative commons, I’ve understood past efforts to protect intellectual property. Shutting down the power card sites was unfortunate to those of us who found them to be a big aid at the table, but there were many good reasons not to open the door to all sorts of legal challenges later. But shutting down PDF sales with almost no notice and taking them inhouse? It just doesn’t seem to add up. Especially since there’s no alternative in place to buy them.

Filed Under: Editorial, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: drm, pdfs, piracy

DM Chronicles, Session 13: Crunchy Finale, Part 2

April 6, 2009 by The Chatty DM

See part 1 here. Anti-climatic Finale After the Gnoll lieutenant’s infernal challenge, the party surveyed the room for threats.  The room was two-tiered. On the ground floor was a great minotaur idol sitting behind a boiling cauldron from which noxious fumes emerged. A mezzanine was accessible by a short set of stairs.  On the mezzanine […]

Filed Under: Campaign Logs, Musings of the Chatty DM, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: 4e, Chatty's 2008-2009 campaign, Tropes

Yay! My adventure was announced!!!

April 6, 2009 by The Chatty DM

Well, the anthology that my adventure will appear in was announced . Goodman Games will be publishing an anthology of D&D 4e side adventures that DMs can insert when the PCs must travel from one point to the next in their adventure. It will be called From Here to There.  The anthology will feature 9 […]

Filed Under: Musings of the Chatty DM, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: 4e

DM Chronicles, Session 13: Crunchy Finale, Part 1

April 5, 2009 by The Chatty DM

Previously in Chatty’s game: Our heroes faced the second and third test of Baphomet, dodging magical mirrors, exploding skeletons, pools of blood and mechanical minotaurs to recover the relic keys needed to open the complex’s Inner Sanctum.  Only one remains and saving the last two slaves will be within their grasps. Last Friday was to […]

Filed Under: Campaign Logs, Musings of the Chatty DM, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: 4e, Chatty's 2008-2009 campaign

Pain of Campaigning: XIX Getting My Hands Dirty

April 3, 2009 by The Main Event

Last week I dealt with brainstorming for my military-based high fatality huge party epic campaign. This week, I’m going to elaborate on a few of the underlying concepts for the campaign. What follows are my preliminary rules/fluff for the game, subject to further consideration and reader feedback.

Filed Under: Featured, Pain of Publication, Roleplaying Games

Open Game Table RPG Blog Anthology

April 2, 2009 by The Chatty DM

Yesterday, as I was leaving home to go and have lunch my good friend TheMaze I saw a big envelope in my mailbox. The sender was Jonathan Jacob, author of The Core Mechanic.  My heart jumped!  It was my contributor’s copy of Open Game Table: The Anthology of Roleplaying Game Blogs. This absolutely incredible project […]

Filed Under: blogging, Musings of the Chatty DM, Roleplaying Games

Sex, Love, and the Races of the PHB2

April 1, 2009 by guest

In honor of the release of the totally awesome PHB2 and Spring, I decided to write about sex, love, and the races of the PHB2.

Ever wonder what a gnome finds sexy? Or how goliaths deal with friction from rubbing lithoderms? Maybe I’m the only one who thinks about these things…

Filed Under: Featured, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: april fools, geek love, love, PHB2, races, sex

The Dungeon Reality Show: Half-Time Showdown, Part 2

March 31, 2009 by The Chatty DM

First Down, 5 Kobolds to go Okay so after having, for all intents and purposes, killed the game by the time that 8h PM rolled by, I asked all three players if they’d be willing to play the original 2nd scene of the adventure. I’m grateful that they accepted. As I had planned it, had […]

Filed Under: Musings of the Chatty DM, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: 4e, Dungeon Reality Show

Inq. of the Week: PHB2 Power Creep

March 31, 2009 by The Main Event

In the heyday of 3.5 I’d browse every new splat book, not for intriguing new play options (many, many sucked), but for the overpowered Prestige Class de jour. After all, who didn’t want to dip into a single level of six prestige classes for awesome abilities? With a few exceptions, the poor original DMG prestige classes were forgotten, unless of course something new came out that made a dog suddenly viable. Now, with the PHB2 out I was curious to see if this newer, more-balanced D&D suffered the same fate as its predecessors: Power Creep.

Filed Under: Featured, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: balance, PHB2, power creep

The Dungeon Reality Show: Half-Time Showdown, Part 1

March 29, 2009 by The Chatty DM

As I more or less coherently described here, Friday night was a “let’s test some Players Handbook 2 classes” session.  Yan, Mike and Franky showed up with a level 2 Sorcerer, Invoker and Shaman. While fishing for concepts  for the adventure, I had the idea to use a shtick I had tried once before.  I […]

Filed Under: Musings of the Chatty DM, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: 4e, Dungeon Reality Show

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  • Dave

    Dave "The Game" Chalker is the Editor-in-Chief and Co-Founder of Critical Hits. Since 2005, he has been bringing readers game news and advice, as well as editing nearly everything published here. He is the designer of the Origins Award-winning Get Bit!, a freelance designer and developer, son of a science fiction author, and a Master of Arts. He lives in MD with e and at least three dogs.

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