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You are here: Home / Archives for Tropes

Primal/Within Chronicles: City of the Overmind, Part 2

September 8, 2009 by The Chatty DM

See part 1 here. Burning Dungeon & Wheel Dragons As Wednesday night was ticking by, a dangerous new idea about the way to run a D&D adventure came up… You see, like many gamers unused to indie RPG designs, I read Mouse Guard with voracity but finished it with the  feeling that while I had […]

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

Tales of the City Within: Session 1, Part 1

June 29, 2009 by The Chatty DM

As mentioned last week, my next mini-campaign was going to focus on a less scripted, more improv style of gaming.  Borrowing from Dave the Game’s 5X5 design method, I created an adventure where multiple plots intertwine, forcing PCs to prioritize and chose what to focus on at any given time. A bit like a Comic […]

Filed Under: Campaign Logs, Musings of the Chatty DM, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: 4e, Chatty's 2009 Summer Campaign, Primal/Within, Tropes

Tales of the City Within: a 5X5 Sandbox experiment.

June 23, 2009 by The Chatty DM

Summer is upon us and that usually means that our bi-monthly D&D become less formal.  Attendance tends to fluctuate wildly and our play sessions are usually shorter. In past years, we’ve used the summer period to test out new games or new PCs. This year, most of my players have manifested an interest to keep […]

Filed Under: Adventure Prep, Musings of the Chatty DM Tagged With: 4e, Chatty's 2009 Summer Campaign, Primal/Within, Tropes

Primal/Within Chronicles: A Master’s Wrath, Part 2

June 17, 2009 by The Chatty DM

See part 1 here. Plot Exposition break Before jumping in the suspended portal standing 15′ over the 1st floor, the PCs rested for a few minutes and searched the Wizard’s lair.  They found that the mad mage had recently abandoned his work on creating enhanced monsters and started focusing on portals. His various research notes […]

Filed Under: Campaign Logs, Musings of the Chatty DM, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: 4e, Chatty's 2008-2009 campaign, Megadungeon, Primal/Within, Tropes

Primal/Within Chronicles: Say Yes and have Fun! Part 2

June 1, 2009 by The Chatty DM

See part 1 here. The word of the Spirit After the Ritual was completed and the elemental monsters were vanquished, Dworkin announced that he was now the spokesperson of the Kodiak spirit.  Franky and I had worked out the relationship between his character and the potential spirit beforehand so he explained that from now on, […]

Filed Under: Campaign Logs, Musings of the Chatty DM, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: 4e, Chatty's 2008-2009 campaign, Primal/Within, Tropes

Friday Chat: Do You Sprinkle Silliness in your Campaigns?

May 29, 2009 by The Chatty DM

The Bloodbowl 4e post with the actual rules is taking longer than planned to finish and the Ennies application process deadline came and bit me in the a$$.   Instead of posting part 4 of my Dungeon Reality Show this morning, I’m posting another of those Friday questions.  I’ll post the DRS one as soon as […]

Filed Under: Musings of the Chatty DM, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: advice, Discussions, DMing, Friday Chat, Theme week, Tropes

Adventure Prep: The City Adventure

May 6, 2009 by The Chatty DM

For my next D&D session (which is on Friday next week), I’ve decided to go for a city-based adventure. We’ve played 3 sessions into our new Primal/Within campaign and all those were focused on the Dungeon part of the setting and very little on the city (except to interact with Quest giving NPCs). I think […]

Filed Under: Adventure Prep, Musings of the Chatty DM Tagged With: City Adventures, Primal/Within, Tropes, world building

Primal/Within Chronicles: The Font of Sorrows, Session 2 Part 2

May 4, 2009 by The Chatty DM

See part 1, here. City Interlude After having beaten the undead prisoner-guardians of the Font of Sorrows and subduing ‘Spurt’ the enchanted Bulette, our heroes returned to town to complete their rest and return Spurt to its owner. The mad Wizard was relieved to recover his prized pet, although bitterly disappointed to see all the […]

Filed Under: Campaign Logs, Musings of the Chatty DM, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: 4e, Chatty's 2008-2009 campaign, Megadungeon, Primal/Within, Tropes

Primal/Within Chronicles: The Font of Sorrow, Part 1

April 18, 2009 by The Chatty DM

This is a report of my newest D&D 4e campaign set in the home-brewed Primal Dungeon/City Within campaign. I could see that my players were anticipating the game as emails about PC backstories multiplied like wildfire! All players showed up (s0me had to spend several brownie points to make it) and we got around to […]

Filed Under: Campaign Logs, Musings of the Chatty DM, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: 4e, Chatty's 2008-2009 campaign, Megadungeon, Primal/Within, Tropes

Chatty’s megadungeon: Meet Spurt and his Wayward Master!

April 17, 2009 by The Chatty DM

Tonight is the first official session of our Primal/Within campaign. Set in the Font of Sorrows, our adventurers will have to trace the source of something contaminating part of the City Within’s water supply. I’ve said it a few times, I enjoy a bit of silliness in my games. So while I was writing the […]

Filed Under: Musings of the Chatty DM, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: 4e, Chatty's 2008-2009 campaign, Megadungeon, 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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