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You are here: Home / Archives for Tropes

The Short Epic Tale

March 24, 2010 by The Chatty DM

ne of the things that still bewilders me after nearly 30 years of RPGs is how many of us insist on following specific conceits that were rarely, if ever, hardwired in the rules. For instance, what’s with having such long campaign lengths and the necessity to stick with the same PC as long as it remains alive? I’ve talked to so many people online and during cons bemoan that they can’t try a new class or a new RPG because ‘we’re playing this one epic campaign, maybe after…’ Say What? Why must so many campaigns be these epic tales lasting x amount of actual real life years? Why is it so important to ‘get to the end of the game’?

Filed Under: Musings of the Chatty DM, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: Chatty's what if, D&D, DM advice, Mini-campaigns, Tropes

Gears of Ruin: The Phantom Rails, Part 2

March 8, 2010 by The Chatty DM

As the party schemed, hidden behind a pile of Warclank (i.e clockwork mechas) spare parts near the gigantic pile of humanoid corpses, the ghouls and blasphemes continued their Dance Macabre, the ghouls trying to snatch pieces of relatively fresh “meat” from the pile while the reconstructed undead kept them at bay with beams of death-laced energies.

Filed Under: Campaign Logs, Musings of the Chatty DM Tagged With: 4e, Chatty's 2009-2010 Campaign, Gears of Ruin, Tropes

Gears of Ruin: The Phantom Rails, Part 1

February 23, 2010 by The Chatty DM

The one rule I gave myself was “Shape the adventure based on the questions your players ask you” and “When in doubt, ask for a skill check”.

It worked wonderfully. So much so that my first true sandbox dungeon adventure probably felt like a seamless linear adventure narrative to my players who probably thought they were just following the path I had made for them.

Filed Under: Campaign Logs, Musings of the Chatty DM, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: 4e, Chatty's 2009-2010 Campaign, Clockwork D&D, Gears of Ruin, Tropes

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

Gears of Ruin: Session 1, Revolutions per Machines, Part 2

January 11, 2010 by The Chatty DM

See part 1 here. Get me some Competence Porn, stat! The first scene had a few goals.  Introduce the PCs to the first important NPCs of the campaign, give them a quest for the night, but more importantly, make them look good! The scene started with the PCs waiting to be summoned to show up […]

Filed Under: Campaign Logs, Musings of the Chatty DM Tagged With: 4e, Chatty's 2009-2010 Campaign, Gears of Ruin, Tropes

Gears of Ruin: Creating PC-specific Clockwork Mechanics.

December 11, 2009 by The Chatty DM

My new Gears of Ruin Clockwork D&D 4e campaign starts as soon as the holidays are over (with a pre-campaign session right before). I’ve spoken a bit about what the setting would be.  I’m moving away from my traditional fantasy world and creating a new one based on Clockwork Fantasy tropes (Girl Genius, Iron Kingdoms, […]

Filed Under: Musings of the Chatty DM, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: 4e, chatty's, Gears of Ruin, Tropes, world building

Campaign Genesis: Gears of Ruin

November 19, 2009 by The Chatty DM

I’m taking a short break from my course prep to share with you some of the brainstorming that is shaping my newest D&D 4e campaign.  Last week, when I pre-pitched my D&D adventure ideas for Dungeon Magazine, one of the ideas that wasn’t retained ‘as is’ was a clockwork fantasy adventure. It’s not that the […]

Filed Under: Musings of the Chatty DM, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: 4e, Chatty's 2009-2010 Campaign, Gears of Ruin, Tropes, world building

Chatty’s Halloween Post: The 2012 Zombie Apocalypse

October 31, 2009 by The Chatty DM

This one is for The Maze, Scott, and HermitDave, and is a 100% RPG post inspired by my Influenza article. I give you the Zombie Apocalypse RPG Trope Post! Zombies are people, too… Okay, dead people, with poor verbal skills. And the only communication they understand is blowing off their heads. – USA Network commercial […]

Filed Under: Musings of the Chatty DM, Roleplaying Games, Tropes Tagged With: halloween, Influenza, Tropes, Vaccine, Vampire, Zombie

Primal/Within Chronicles: City of the Overmind, Part 4

September 10, 2009 by The Chatty DM

See part 3 here. Oh noes!  Failure! After recovering the key part from the Merchant “Prince” the players consulted the Map. Math: All right, the next closest thing is the Vats, let’s go! Eric: No, let’s do the Vats last, we’ll be able to bust them after and then go do Rocco, Franky and Mike’s […]

Filed Under: Campaign Logs, Musings of the Chatty DM, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: 4e, Burning Wheel, Chatty's 2009-2010 Campaign, Mouse Guard, Primal/Within, Tropes

Primal/Within Chronicles: City of the Overmind, Part 3

September 9, 2009 by The Chatty DM

See part 2 here. Stealth and the Art of Not Getting Killed in a Hostile City Chatty DM: So what do you want to do first? Yan: Well, we’ll start my goal of trying to find rumors about the possible location of the key pats. Chatty: All right then let’s make this a 5 part […]

Filed Under: Musings of the Chatty DM, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: 4e, Burning Wheel, Chatty's 2009-2010 Campaign, Mouse Guard, Primal/Within, 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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