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You are here: Home / Archives for DMing

Game Prep: The Mental State

September 7, 2007 by The Chatty DM

Preparing an adventure represents about 80% of my game prep process. This includes stating the Bad Guys, setting the difficulty of the various Non-Combat challenges and creating loot that the players will appreciate. Aside: One of my last D&D 3.5 purchases was the Magic Item Compedium. This book is phenomenal and a preview of what […]

Filed Under: Adventure Prep, Musings of the Chatty DM, Player Psychology, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: DMing

Adventure Prep, Session 2

September 6, 2007 by The Chatty DM

I’m still shocked that people other than my close friends actually read this and even more shocked to have been mentioned by other DM bloggers. (I’m not going to Ego it up by linking to their post, but these guys have gotten added to my DM Blogroll). Oh and this is not a Meta-Blogging post […]

Filed Under: Adventure Prep, Musings of the Chatty DM, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: DMing, rule of cool, Tropes

Exploring Evil in RPGs

September 4, 2007 by The Chatty DM

As promised, Vanir over at StupidRanger posted is 1st part of a series on defining Evil in NPC. His definitions of evil and the motivations that may lead a non-evil being to cross the line are spot on. A lot can be said on Evil and we actually have quite a few gaming books written […]

Filed Under: Musings of the Chatty DM, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: DMing

The Rule of Cool

September 4, 2007 by The Chatty DM

Image Source: The TV Tropes Wiki. I just found out about possibly the coolest site for failed writers (raises hand), Meta-plot analyst (raises hand… again) and just plain Story-driven entertainment junkies (Me me me!!!). It’s called the TV tropes Wiki and it may very well Ruin your life. (God! I must be the billionth blogger […]

Filed Under: Campaign Logs, Musings of the Chatty DM, Roleplaying Games, Tropes Tagged With: DMing, rule of cool, Tropes

The Campaign Elevator Pitch: Selling your game to your players

August 31, 2007 by The Chatty DM

A few months ago, I stumbled upon Martin Ralya’s GM Wiki (well, it’s a collaborative effort, but he hosts it) and one concept in it really inspired me, the RPG Elevator Pitch. A short, concise description of a RPG system, like if you were trying to sell someone over a new game within the time […]

Filed Under: Musings of the Chatty DM, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: DMing

Online Tools, Take 2

August 30, 2007 by The Chatty DM

Last month I posted about software tools I planned on using in our current game. It turns out it worked a lot better than planned. All players joined the Google Group we created (see here for explanations on how it works) and I’m truly impressed by participation. Google Groups are basically a discussion group tool. […]

Filed Under: Geek Stuff, Musings of the Chatty DM, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: DMing

Where has the post-game funk gone?

August 27, 2007 by The Chatty DM

I don’t feel down at all about the bad game we had last Friday, I’m actually surprised at that. While bad sessions are a lot rarer than they were (switching from Gurps to D&D 3.0 was hard!), I often felt that it was finally time to hang my RPG skates after such a session. Even […]

Filed Under: Musings of the Chatty DM, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: DMing

DM Chronicles, Session 1: Harsh Beginnings

August 26, 2007 by The Chatty DM

This series will be a DM-centric log of my current D&D campaign, it will not be an attempt at telling a story so much as being a ‘lessons learned’ tool for me to reflect on what was good and what wasn’t so good in the last session. It will be mostly about game mechanics, design […]

Filed Under: Campaign Logs, Musings of the Chatty DM, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: 3.5e, Chatty's 2007-2008 campaign, DMing

Interplannar adventures

August 24, 2007 by The Chatty DM

Warning, Spoilers for Monte Cook’s Ptolus d20 setting. Safe for my players to read. I’ve been wishing to do a multiplanar campaign for a long time. A D&D 2nds edition was the period I had left that game for the crunchiness and detail of Gurps. So I missed out on Planescape, having touched it only […]

Filed Under: Musings of the Chatty DM, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: DMing

Recent DMing stuff from the Bloggoshere

August 22, 2007 by The Chatty DM

Instead of writing new DMstuff, why not link to interesting things other people have to say on the subject of DMing? Danny (Bartoneous) from Critical-hits talks about how to end a gaming session. I agree that Cliffhangers are a great way to end a D&D gaming night. I’ll further add* that Cliffhangers are sometimes hard […]

Filed Under: Musings of the Chatty DM, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: DMing

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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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