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You are here: Home / Archives for 13th Age

13th Age: Indexing Truths

June 8, 2020 by The Chatty DM

The Diabolist

Whenever I have a short pause in in what I’m doing at my desk, I reach out for the little pile of index cards called “The Horizon Consipracy” and add new cards to it.

Filed Under: Adventure Prep, Featured, Musings of the Chatty DM, Newest Critical Hits, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: 13th Age, campaign design, campaign planning, chatty's 13th age, index card prep

The Horizon Conspiracy

May 19, 2020 by The Chatty DM

The Diabolist

Then a question came to me: “Which icon is going to run interference in this scheme?” and asked for a final d12 roll and came up with “The Diabolist”

Filed Under: Adventure Prep, Campaign Logs, Featured, Musings of the Chatty DM, Newest Critical Hits, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: 13th Age, campaign design, chatty's 13th age, d20 Fantasy, d20 system, index card prep

The Index Card Method Codex, Part 2

April 22, 2015 by The Chatty DM

A stack is a great inspiration tool when you’re looking for what happens next, especially when you run a no-prep style game. When you’re thinking about what comes next in play, just pick up your stack and go through it. You might find something that inspires a whole scene, especially if you keep up-to-date notes.

Filed Under: Adventure Prep, Campaign Logs, Musings of the Chatty DM, Newest Critical Hits, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: 13th Age, D&D, dungeon world, GM, GMing, gming advice, Gming tools

The Index Card Method Codex, Part 1

April 20, 2015 by The Chatty DM

I’ve been using index cards as a GMing tool a lot this last year. In July, I posted about using them to create adventures in your downtime. I’ve since found new uses for them and brought everything together in this post.

Filed Under: Adventure Prep, Campaign Logs, Featured, Musings of the Chatty DM, Newest Critical Hits, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: 13th Age, D&D, dungeon world, GM, GMing, gming advice, Gming tools

Adventure Creation Hacks: Index Cards

July 28, 2014 by The Chatty DM

I had to adapt my approach to prepping. I needed a way to do a little amount of prep whenever I had a short break: during lunch breaks, long meetings or at home. I got the original idea, of all places, in a task management book called From Zen to Done.

Filed Under: Adventure Prep, Featured, Game Hacks & Content, Musings of the Chatty DM, Newest Critical Hits, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: 13th Age, chatty's 13th age

Chatty’s 13th Age: The Lich King’s Curse and Reactive Bosses

May 27, 2014 by The Chatty DM

What if a character granted the curse of the Lich King could no longer die? And what if a monster had powers that triggered on the players’ rolls or special attacks?

Filed Under: Actual Play, Featured, Game Hacks & Content, Musings of the Chatty DM, Newest Critical Hits, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: 13th Age, 13thAge, chatty's 13th age

Chatty’s “13th Age”: The Story So Far, Part 2

January 10, 2014 by The Chatty DM

In Part 1, I started sharing a summary of my 13th Age campaign. In this post, I’ll catch up to current events and tell you a bit more about my players and table dynamics. If you’ve been reading my recent 13th Age posts, you should know that the next chapter is what inspired me to write the 13th Age hack about dealing with PC vs NPC contests.

Filed Under: Actual Play, Featured, Musings of the Chatty DM, Newest Critical Hits, Player Psychology, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: 13th Age, chatty's 13th age

Chatty’s “13th Age”: The Story So Far, Part 1

January 6, 2014 by The Chatty DM

Our 13th Age campaign is blossoming into one of the most amazing, highly improvised RPG campaigns I’ve ever played. So much so that I consider it one of the high points of my GMing career. I decided it was a good time to share some of its highlights and show you how we made the 13th Age Dragon Empire our own.

Filed Under: Actual Play, Featured, Musings of the Chatty DM, Newest Critical Hits, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: 13th Age, chatty's 13th age

“13th Age” Musings: Running Non-Combat PC vs. NPC Scenes

December 20, 2013 by The Chatty DM

Specifically for my needs, 13th Age does not have an obvious way to emulate “duel of wits.” I’m aware I could just “roleplay” them or make use of the generic difficulty ratings and “failing forward” concepts. In spite of that, I still felt like something’s missing from my 13th Age GMing toolbox.

Filed Under: Featured, Game Hacks & Content, Musings of the Chatty DM, Newest Critical Hits, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: 13th Age, Game Hacks & Content, gming advice, hacking

“13th Age” Musings: Story Hook-Based Adventure Prepping

November 18, 2013 by The Chatty DM

Last week, I was scrambling to prepare for my bimonthly 13th Age game session. We’d just completed the campaign’s first story arc, one I’d run with tight narrative control (That’s fancy jargon for “railroading”). I wanted the next arc to be more episodic in nature and allow players to chose where to the story would go. I am, however, well aware of the chaos and paralysis that can occur on both sides of the proverbial gaming screen if the GM opens up the world and waits for the players to do something. As I was brainstorming to find a good compromise, I stumbled on an idea.

Filed Under: Actual Play, Adventure Prep, Featured, Musings of the Chatty DM, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: 13th Age

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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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