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You are here: Home / Archives for Roleplaying Games

The special challenge of DMing for adult gamers

November 18, 2007 by The Chatty DM

There is quite an interesting discussion going on over the Okay…your Turn RPG forums (a very classy, mostly D&D/Iron Heroes/Arcana Evolved/ Ptolus gaming forum) about the Dungeon Masters having become the Dungeon Servants. This discussion brought me additional insights about a subject that has been brewing in my mind for some time now. You see, […]

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

Call to all minions!

November 16, 2007 by The Chatty DM

It’s been while since I made a Crunch Overlord post (I can already hear Yan groan). But as I did last time I’ll actually add some usefull RPG table psychology stuff. Its also a community thing, I hope you won’t be too offended if I call you minions… 🙂 Also just so were all on […]

Filed Under: Musings of the Chatty DM, Player Psychology Tagged With: Community

Mini-Crunch: The Golem's Magical Immunities

November 15, 2007 by The Chatty DM

When Grandaddy Gygax created the various types of Golem (borrowed from Jewish folklore I believe… Yup that’s right), I think he was aiming at a Monster that would be hard to deal with at High Level and that would allow Fighters and other non-spell casters a chance to shine with their +3 weapons. That concept […]

Filed Under: Musings of the Chatty DM, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: Crunch, mini-post

Mini-Fluff: The DM's Fingerprint

November 15, 2007 by The Chatty DM

I have started reading David Eddings again (and I just learned from a French reference at the bottom that his wife and co-author died shortly after Robert Jordan… this is sad) and it brought back a meta-literature discussion I have had in the last few years. I have read a lot of novels, a few […]

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

Adventure Prep: Tomb Re-engineering 101

November 14, 2007 by The Chatty DM

Okay, I got sick last night, probably with the same bugs my wife and kids have been fighting these last 2 weeks. Hopefully I’ll get better for Friday’s game. If not well I just might have to pull the plug on it no matter how I’d much rather not do this. This week’s Adventure prep […]

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

PWW: The Closet Half-Orc takes another bite at roleplaying.

November 13, 2007 by The Chatty DM

Here is PM’s 3rd post where he relates his experiencs as a new Role-Player. This week he talks about our McWod game, and while some of his impressions and comments sting a bit, they are very relevant and acts, at time, as a disturbingly accurate mirror of us, the other players. This week, my inner […]

Filed Under: Musings of the Chatty DM, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: McWoD, The Closet Half Orc

Mining Tropes for RPG Nuggets: What a Coincidence!

November 12, 2007 by The Chatty DM

It’s been some time since I last posted an article in the Tropes series. What can I say? It’s been a busy 2 weeks! This post will tie in directly with tomorrow’s Adventure Prep post for this week’s game. There you are, sitting wherever it is you sit when preparing your next adventure. You want […]

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

Inq. of the Week: Games You Play

November 12, 2007 by Bartoneus

Two weeks ago Dave asked about your views on Web-vertising and it looks like a large majority just tune out Google ads all together, a whopping 48% of you! Smaller groups found them sometimes handy but mostly unobtrusive or make effective use of sophisticated ad-blocking software to make sure that they are none-the-wiser to this […]

Filed Under: Board, Card, and Miniature Games, Inquisition of the Week, Roleplaying Games, Video Games

The Pain of Campaigning II: Starting the Game

November 12, 2007 by The Main Event

So you have made some decisions about your game. You may have drawn yourself a pretty map, figured out that the King is actually a Beholder, and even made a cute little NPC to travel with the players. If you were really smart you considered the campaign’s primary conflict, means of conflict resolution, and a […]

Filed Under: Editorial, Featured, Pain of Publication, Roleplaying Games

The (annotated) case reports of Agent James (Kevin) Smith: First Assignment

November 11, 2007 by The Chatty DM

Decrypted from a genital enhancement spam on alt.conspiracy.inconnu on November 11, 2007. Author: KnowthetruthS911. Case report #20071110-JKS-A Location: Chicago Regional HQ On November 9, 2007, we were assigned to an investigation case pertaining to the death and dismemberment of a John Doe, discovered by local Law Enforcement forces in one of Chicago’s industrial centers (See […]

Filed Under: Campaign Logs, Musings of the Chatty DM Tagged With: Chatty as a Player, McWoD

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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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