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You are here: Home / Archives for leverage

The Cortex Plus Hacker’s Guide: The Old School Job

February 1, 2013 by The Chatty DM

In which Chatty describes his Cortex Plus hacks included in the Cortex Plus Hacker’s Guide and points to where you can get a preview copy of the first part!

Filed Under: Game Hacks & Content, Musings of the Chatty DM, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: Cortex Plus, Cortex Plus Action, D&D, Kickstarter, leverage, the old school job

Cortex Plus Hacker’s Guide and Fantasy Heroic Roleplaying

January 25, 2013 by Dave

As you might know, Phil and I have been D&D fans for decades. Here on Critical Hits, we’ve spent a lot of time writing about, musing about, and generally playing with D&D and games like it.

Filed Under: Critical Threats, Featured, Game Hacks & Content, News, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: Cortex Plus, cphg, D&D, leverage, marvel heroic roleplaying, mhrp, smallville

O The Tangled Webs We Weep, When Breathe We Don’t When Go To Sleep

March 6, 2012 by Vanir

Ever since I was a wee lad, I’ve always had really vivid dreams. On occasion, this translates into really vivid nightmares, which sucks mightily. Usually, though, it just means I’m going to have a good story to tell come the dawn. Well, that is, until I found out I had sleep apnea. Turns out, one of the side effects of stopping to take a break during sleep to not breathe every few minutes is that you never really leave REM sleep — causing incredibly vivid dreams. Getting a machine to help with that provides me with a lot more energy during the day, but I only get a tiny fraction of the WTF I used to reap each night. This week, however, my sinuses have decided to clog up everything, making it really hard for my machine to blow air down my throat to keep me breathing normally. And that meant it was SHOWTIME.

Filed Under: Dire Flailings, Humor, Roleplaying Games, Science Fiction & Fantasy Genre Tagged With: aliens, apnea, conventions, cortex, cpap, dreams, illinois central college, kmart, leverage, marvel, orange chairs, pregnant, sweaters, tractors, warm mood lighting

Improv Pushups: The Movie

October 17, 2011 by Vanir

Early Monday morning, I bid farewell to one Dave Chalker (who I had been staying with for the week, and who had risen with me to get me to the airport before the coming of the dread Day Star).I came all the way to the East coast for one specific purpose: to game my face off. More specifically, DC Gameday was this weekend, and I wanted to game my face off as close to Congress as I possibly could. Somebody’s got to show those guys how to play nice together, right?

Filed Under: Board, Card, and Miniature Games, Dire Flailings, Featured, Humor, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: ascension, cortex, dc game day, dc gameday, fiasco, leverage, microscope, star trek deckbuilding, yogurt

You’re Out of your FAQing Element

June 3, 2011 by Logan Bonner

Ryan Macklin wrote a blog post about problems he sees with “use-whenever” stats in RPGs, using my FAQ hack for Leverage as an example. There are somegood ideas in there, and I encourage reading it. I however think it’s missing the point by suggesting that the FAQ system isn’t doing what it should in the system.

Filed Under: Game Hacks & Content, Minor Quests, Newest Critical Hits, Roleplaying Games, Television Tagged With: Cortex Plus, Hack, leverage, Ryan Macklin

Playing Leverage with Just the FAQs

May 9, 2011 by Logan Bonner

Leverage: the Roleplaying Game does so many things right. It’s quick, collaborative, easy to prep, iconic, and tethered to a great back-and-forth mechanic and play style. But still, every plan has room for improvement.

Filed Under: Game Hacks & Content, Minor Quests, Roleplaying Games, Television Tagged With: game design, leverage, Leverage RPG

Mage: The Ascension Job

March 17, 2011 by Dave

It’s no secret that I’ve been a bit Leverage RPG crazy for the past few months- in many ways, it’s a system that just flat out “clicked” with me as soon as I played it. One of the outcroppings of that is my desire to hack it into other settings. I’m a huge fan of modern settings, and while Leverage RPG scratches that itch, there’s lots of room for modern games beyond heists and capers. Enter my early ideas about combining it with Mage: The Ascension, to which I (and as I discovered recently, many other gamers) have very fond memories of.

Filed Under: Critical Threats, Game Hacks & Content, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: leverage, Leverage RPG, mage: the ascension

Chatty’s PaxEast Highlights: 3 days of Fun Among Friends

March 15, 2011 by The Chatty DM

In which Chatty miraculously fits his highlights of a spectacular convention in only one 1500 words post. A record some will say!

Filed Under: Board, Card, and Miniature Games, Featured, Musings of the Chatty DM, Newest Critical Hits, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: Boston, fiasco, Gabe, games, gamma world, Jane MacGonigal, leverage, magic the gathering, Mouse Guard, Munckin, pax east 2011, Tycho

Dungeon Master Guys, Episode 9

February 24, 2011 by Dungeon Master Guys

Dave and Phil talk to Cam Banks of Margaret Weis Productions about Cortex Plus, NewbieDM talks to Mike Shea about combat length, and we answer questions about skill checks and table knowledge.

Filed Under: Dungeon Master Guys Podcast, Podcasts, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: combat length, combat speed, d&d 4e, DM advice, leverage, Podcast

“Leverage” RPG: The Misidentified Dolphin Job

December 13, 2010 by Dave

The Miami Crew helps out a disgraced football player by reversing a lookalike brother con into a Kansas City Shuffle within a Xanatos Gambit.

Filed Under: Critical Threats, Editorial, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: Actual Play, leverage

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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