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You are here: Home / Archives for Role Playing Games

The Cardboard Dungeon, Part 1

January 23, 2015 by The Chatty DM

For our second D&D session, I was “planning” to run a classic Dungeon Crawl™. In the spirit of the previous session, I didn’t want to prepare an actual dungeon map with a key of its content. First I didn’t have time, and second, I wanted to see how I could run an improvised crawl. As I […]

Filed Under: Musings of the Chatty DM, Newest Critical Hits Tagged With: D&D, DM, dungeon mastering, Dungeons and Dragons, Game Mastering, GM, Role Playing Games, roleplaying games

Fake it like Chatty.

January 21, 2015 by The Chatty DM

No matter how many years of experience you accumulate as a Dungeon Master, there are things you’re better at than others.  For instance, I’m excellent with pacing and I bring stories from zero to epic in mere minutes. (I once ran a game from character creation to driving A moon-sized dragon into a planet core to […]

Filed Under: Musings of the Chatty DM, Newest Critical Hits Tagged With: D&D, DM, dungeon mastering, Dungeons and Dragons, Game Mastering, GM, Role Playing Games, roleplaying games

The Jungle Island of Loot, Part 3

January 19, 2015 by The Chatty DM

After a very bloody round of combat , my players became aware that I wasn’t planning to parcel out encounters in tidy, balanced packets (especially since I didn’t have the Dungeon Master Guide at the time). They rapidly started looking for alternatives to becoming monkey chow. Franky: Mush will use Minor Illusion to create the sound […]

Filed Under: Musings of the Chatty DM Tagged With: D&D, DM, dungeon mastering, Dungeons and Dragons, Game Mastering, GM, Role Playing Games, roleplaying games

The Jungle Island of Loot, Part 2

January 16, 2015 by The Chatty DM

Redbeard, Mush and Jack sailed out of Ereborn and set for Volcano Island. I started things with a sailing challenge, asking for roll. I forget if it was Wisdom, Intelligence or Dexterity. I was clear to let them know that they wouldn’t get lost, as the volcano’s plume was visible from anywhere in the archipelago. Flubbing the […]

Filed Under: Musings of the Chatty DM Tagged With: D&D, DM, dungeon mastering, Dungeons and Dragons, Game Mastering, GM, Role Playing Games, roleplaying games

The Jungle Island of Loot, Part 1

January 14, 2015 by The Chatty DM

If you’ve been reading my recent posts, you know we managed to create new D&D characters and the basis of a campaign settings in less than two hours. When we were done everyone was ready to go, excited to see how the game would go. I dove right into it and grabbed the setting’s index cards into a stack. […]

Filed Under: Musings of the Chatty DM Tagged With: D&D, DM, dungeon mastering, Dungeons and Dragons, Game Mastering, GM, Role Playing Games, roleplaying games

(Re)Genesis of a D&D Campaign, Part 2

January 12, 2015 by The Chatty DM

A few weeks before the 2014 end of year holidays, I made my usual group a double proposal: Give D&D 5e a honest try and invite my 12 y.o son Nico to play with us. (Remember Nico?) I had no adventure ready, my plan was to slum it one-shot style with pre-generated characters, like I did […]

Filed Under: Newest Critical Hits Tagged With: D&D, DM, dungeon mastering, Dungeons and Dragons, Game Mastering, GM, Role Playing Games, roleplaying games

(Re)Genesis of a D&D Campaign, Part 1

January 9, 2015 by The Chatty DM

This is an excerpt of my second blog post, published in July 2007 This fall, after a 2 year campaign characterized by many missed games and a DM that finally decided to tackle and recover from a severe depression, we decided that we needed to start a new one. I’m pretty excited by the new […]

Filed Under: Newest Critical Hits Tagged With: D&D, DM, dungeon mastering, Dungeons and Dragons, Game Mastering, GM, Role Playing Games, roleplaying games

Like a Virgin… for the 5th time.

January 7, 2015 by The Chatty DM

(Trying something new here. I’m challenging myself to write 3 short articles a week about D&D. If you like the idea, please let me know!) I’ve been playing RPGs for more than 30 years. I’ve been a Game Master for 95%+ of that time. It’s the role I like most, for reasons that have evolved over the […]

Filed Under: Musings of the Chatty DM, Newest Critical Hits, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: D&D, DM, dungeon mastering, Dungeons and Dragons, Game Mastering, GM, Role Playing Games, roleplaying games

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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