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You are here: Home / Archives for DMing

Robin's Laws Revisited: Part 2, Player Types and Traits

January 23, 2008 by The Chatty DM

This post is part of a new series that explores Robin Laws’ seminal work on GMing. This time I tackle the book’s fundamental subject of player types and what they seek in RPGs. Part one can be found here. The second chapter of Robin’s Laws of Good Game Mastering brings up the subject that knowing […]

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

Adventure Prep: Strapping it all together to get it going good!

January 21, 2008 by The Chatty DM

This post is part of a series that covers the preparations I do for my current D&D campaign. You can follow it here and the various DM logs I wrote here. Our next D&D game is Friday night. Weeee! This time we’ll be missing our Archer as Franky will be working during the evening (he’s […]

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

Getting back in the game!

January 17, 2008 by The Chatty DM

Along with other RPG GMing bloggers, I was contacted by Role-playing Tips guru, Johnn Four this week to contribute to his next Newsletter. Not wanting to miss the exposition of being read by so many people, I happily accepted. Heck he even offered to let us use our submission as a post for our blog! […]

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

Mining Tropes for RPG Goodness: Fighting Depression with some Deep Pression!

January 14, 2008 by The Chatty DM

This is the blog’s 200th post! I’ve written a lot of stuff in the last few months, and I’ve enjoyed it immensely. Thank you one and all for giving me the continued gratification of reading these many lines! Now instead of making this a stats-laden article, I thought I’d write another post from my most […]

Filed Under: Musings of the Chatty DM, Player Psychology, Tropes Tagged With: DMing, Tropes

DM Chronicles, Session 9: Troubled re-beginnings

January 13, 2008 by The Chatty DM

This is a continuing series on my current D&D campaign with my buddies. I had no illusions that this week’s game was going to be stellar. My 1st goal of the evening was to get with my pals for the 1st the of the new year and celebrate my 35th Birthday (which was yesterday) and […]

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

My tools of the trade, Part 2

January 11, 2008 by The Chatty DM

Back in October I posted about the tools and props I used in my D&D games. Well since my game is ready and good to go, I took a few more pictures of how I organize my things to have the smoothest of Crunchy game sessions. My DMing Corner: I have a recently renovated room […]

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

(Not so)Mini-Crunch: Magic loot by any other name.

January 8, 2008 by The Chatty DM

I’m fresh back from the Gym, proud in my willpower to have resisted the pull of World of Warcraft and the Blog to take care of me first…. I’m also quite aware of the WotC announcement about the way they plan to handle the next version of the OGL and it’s associated brand license (the […]

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

Robin's Laws Revisited: Part 1, The Rule 0 of DMing

January 7, 2008 by The Chatty DM

At the eve of my 25th RPG/GMing birthday, I’m actually reading something I told myself I’d read but never did up till now: The award winning Robin’s Laws of Good Game Mastering. (Copyright 2002 by Steve Jackson Games Inc). To say that it’s a good read for all DM/GM is an understatement and is well […]

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

Adventure Prep: Of Planescaping and High Intensity Hacking, Part 2

January 6, 2008 by The Chatty DM

I’m preparing for next Friday’s game, the year’s first, which will also coincide with a new campaign arc. I’ll also be marking my 35th birthday and my 25th year as a Dungeon/Game Master. Weeeee! Nostalgic Aside: My 1st dungeon was drawn on a piece of graph paper, was filled with death traps, had a White […]

Filed Under: Adventure Prep, Musings of the Chatty DM Tagged With: DMing

My New Year's goals

January 1, 2008 by The Chatty DM

I don’t do resolutions. Personally, resolutions always imply that I need to change something. The “need to change” expression seems to be guilt-laden (yeah, I was raised a catholic) and implies that the resolution will be hard to implement and/or unpleasant. What I do set for myself are goals. For me, a goal implies that […]

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