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You are here: Home / Archives for Roleplaying 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

Review: “Martial Power 2”

February 6, 2010 by Dave

You might be asking yourself why you need a second Martial Power book, especially as classes are getting more options in DDI. Well, here’s the big factor for me: I find the “builds” of each class to be one of the more interesting parts of the game. In the original Martial Power, there were a few snoozer builds alongside some awesome builds. In Martial Power 2, all the builds look fun and portray different concepts.

Filed Under: Featured, Reviews, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: 4e, martial power 2

Friday Chat: Are You Trying Too Hard?

February 5, 2010 by The Chatty DM

Friday Chats are end-of-week posts intended to foster discussion on various RPG topics that bounce around in my noggin’. This week, with my post on prepping for my game,cramming it with all the awesome Magitek I can think of and applying lessons from last week’s posts, I caught myself asking, yet again, “Dude, aren’t you […]

Filed Under: Adventure Prep, Musings of the Chatty DM, Uncategorized Tagged With: advice, Friday Chat, GMing

Bad Alignment

February 4, 2010 by dixontrimline

From my first exposure to the game, when there were just the three alignments, alignment seemed so artificial and unyielding, like a saccharin straightjacket. When complexity was folded into the mix, in the form of good and evil, and the three options ballooned to nine, the straightjacket became vented, silk-lined, and double-breasted, very fancy and good for an evening out, but still, you know, lashed in the back and making dancing a challenge. Yes, I’m pleased that 4E gave alignments a good shake, reducing the number to five, but I still feel like that might be five too many.

Filed Under: Editorial, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: 4e, alignment

Gearing up: The Setting, Pre-Prep and the Adventure Plan

February 3, 2010 by The Chatty DM

As many of you know, I’m starting a D&D clockwork campaign called Gears of Ruin set on a dying, water and magic-poor world. One where the gods nearly lost the war against the Primordials and more or less abandoned this ravaged, but resource-rich husk to its own fate.

Filed Under: Adventure Prep, Musings of the Chatty DM, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: 4e, Gears of Ruin, Tropes

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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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