• Critical-Hits Studios
    • Criminals Card Game
    • Sentinel Comics: the Roleplaying Game
  • Downloads & Tools
    • Critical Hits Fantasy Name Generator
    • Drinking D&D 2010
    • Drinking D&D 2011
    • Fiasco Playset: “Alma Monster”
    • MODOK’s 11 for Marvel Heroic Roleplaying
    • Refuge In Audacity RPG
    • Strange New Worlds RPG
  • Guides
    • Gamma World
    • Guide to 4e Accessories
    • Guide to Gaming DVDs
    • Skill Challenges
  • RSS Feed
  • Facebook
  • Twitter

Critical Hits

Everything tabletop gaming since 2005

  • News
  • Reviews
  • Columns
    • Dire Flailings
    • Dungeonomics
    • Musings of the Chatty DM
    • Pain of Publication
    • The Architect DM
  • Podcasts
    • Critical Hits Podcast
    • Dungeon Master Guys Podcast
  • Roleplaying Games
  • Tabletop Games
  • Game Hacks & Content
  • Video Games
You are here: Home / Archives for Roleplaying Games

The Final Stage of a RPG Group: Dissolution

July 6, 2010 by The Chatty DM

I thought I was done with this increasingly inaccurately named “4-stages of RPG group development series” when I wrote the last part about Stagnation, but recent event in my gaming group lead me to a painful decision and I thought that tackling it as an addendum to the series would be a good idea.

Filed Under: Musings of the Chatty DM, Player Psychology, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: d&d 4e, gm advice, GMing, Group Dynamics, The 4 stages

Roludothon 1 Report: The Sea patrol.

July 2, 2010 by The Chatty DM

Continuing his Roludothon convention report, Chatty relates his 1st Mouse Guard experience as a player.

Filed Under: Actual Play, Musings of the Chatty DM, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: convention report, Mouse Guard, Roludothon

The Dungeon Master Guys, Episode 3

July 1, 2010 by Dungeon Master Guys

Welcome to the third episode of the Dungeon Master Guys podcast! Improvising games, “what if” campaign design, using props to make your game more immersive, using cursed items, answering reader questions, and more.

Filed Under: Dungeon Master Guys Podcast, Podcasts, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: 4e, campaign design, Cursed Items, DM advice, improvising, props

Origins 2010: Final Round-Up

July 1, 2010 by Dave

Origins has once again come and gone. Due to various scheduling mishaps with the convention and technical problems, we didn’t get to do much in the way of scheduled gaming, and spend our time looking for things to do. Here’s just a sample of some of the stuff that we did do and I was excited about in the convention.

Filed Under: Board, Card, and Miniature Games, Editorial, News, Roleplaying Games, Video Games Tagged With: 4e, clerks, crokinole, dominion, dresden files, dresden files rpg, evil hat, exhibit hall, fiasco, legedermain, litko, mayday games, microsoft surface, origins, Origins 2010, rogue, rogue-like, rowboat, settlers of america, settlers of catan, shear panic

Mailbag 8—All By Myself, Part 5

July 1, 2010 by Chris Sims

This final piece is all about the competition for your solos—the players and their characters. You design encounters to challenge those others at your game table, so almost all of this series has really been about them anyway. Rather than the mechanics of making and using solo creatures, this section focuses on engaging players, and keeping them that way, and allowing characters to shine against a solo.

Filed Under: Analysis Paralysis, Editorial, Featured, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: 4e, D&D, DM advice, encounter design, monsters, solos monsters

Roludothon 1 Report, Morning: Robo-Rally, Agricola and Cheetoism

June 30, 2010 by The Chatty DM

Chatty DM shares his gaming and social experiences at a local convention in Montreal. He tried Agricola for the first time and, surprisingly, liked it!

Filed Under: Actual Play, Board, Card, and Miniature Games, Musings of the Chatty DM Tagged With: Agricola, Cheetoism, conventions, Montreal, Poutine, RoboRally, Roludothon

Origins 2010: “Game Design is Mind Control” Seminar

June 29, 2010 by Dave

During Origins 2010, I dropped by a packed seminar run by Luke Crane and Jared Sorensen. Luke Crane is the designer of Burning Wheel and Mouse Guard RPGs, of which we (mainly ChattyDM) have spoken of on many occasions. Jared Sorensen is the game designer behind a number of games including Action Castle and the […]

Filed Under: Board, Card, and Miniature Games, Critical Threats, News, Roleplaying Games, Video Games Tagged With: action castle, Burning Wheel, game design, jared sorensen, luke crane, Mouse Guard, origins, Origins 2010, parsley

Lost Words of Power

June 29, 2010 by Vanir

Behold! The lost knowledge of the ages. Words of power! Words randomly pulled from the air and assigned meaning as if by magic!

Filed Under: Dire Flailings, Humor, Roleplaying Games, Science Fiction & Fantasy Genre Tagged With: 4e, broccoli, buttons, D&D, dungeons and dragons 4e, kegel, mulligan stew, power word, spell, spiro agnew, wizard

Inq. of the Week: D&D and Magic Items?

June 28, 2010 by Bartoneus

Today I’d like to touch on a topic that is very prominent on my mind lately, the topic of how magic items are handled in Dungeons & Dragons and specifically how they’re designed to be used in 4th Edition. I would imagine there is some good discussion that can be had on this topic, but between Dave and I we pretty well agree on the matter so I’m bringing it up here to hopefully open up to a larger range of opinions and see what we get.

Filed Under: Featured, Inquisition of the Week, Roleplaying Games

Eureka: 501 Adventure Plots, Preorder Starts Today

June 28, 2010 by The Chatty DM

Engine Publishing, owned by RPG blog legend Martin Ralya (creator of Gnome Stew and Treasure Tables) announced today the pre-launch of their first RPG publication: Eureka, 501 Adventure Plots. It is available as both a fully bookmarked and hyperlinked PDF and a hardcopy book.

Engine Publishing announced today that everyone pre-ordering the book would get instant access to the PDF, weeks before the launch of the book

Filed Under: News, Roleplaying Games, Science Fiction & Fantasy Genre Tagged With: Adventure Seeds, DM tools, gamemastering advice, Plot hooks

« Previous Page
Next Page »

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/

Subscribe

RSS Feed

Archives

CC License

All articles and comments posted posted on the site (but not the products for sale) are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License. References to trademarks and copywritten material are included for review and commentary use only and are not intended as any kind of challenge.

Recent Comments

  • fogus: The best things and stuff of 2024 on Remembering the Master: An Inelegant Eulogy for Kory Heath
  • Routinely Itemised: RPGs #145 on Review: The Magus
  • The Chatty DM on Review: The Magus
  • Linnaeus on Review: The Magus
  • 13th Age: Indexing Truths — Critical Hits on The Horizon Conspiracy

Contact The Staff

Critical Hits staff can be reached via the contact information on their individual staff pages and in their articles. If you want to reach our senior staff, email staff @ critical-hits.com. We get sent a lot of email, so we can't promise we'll be able to respond to everything.

Recent Posts

  • Remembering the Master: An Inelegant Eulogy for Kory Heath
  • Review: The Magus
  • Hope in the Dark Heart of Evil is Not a Plan
  • Chatty on Games #1: Dorf Romantik
  • The Infinity Current: Adventure 0

Top Posts & Pages

  • Home
  • The 5x5 Method Compendium
  • Dungeons & Dragons "Monster Manual" Preview: The Bulette!
  • Critical Hits Fantasy Name Generator
  • On Mid-Medieval Economics, Murder Hoboing and 100gp
  • "The Eversink Post Office" - An Unofficial Supplement for Swords of the Serpentine
  • Finally a manual for the rest of them!
  • Dave Chalker AKA Dave The Game
  • How to Compare Birds to Fish
  • The Incense War: a Story of Price Discovery, Mayhem, and Lust

Copyright © 2026 · News Pro Theme on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in