tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-80884035891905922652009-11-20T19:59:30.942-05:00A DM's quest for gaming Nirvana (or Mecanus, or the Abyss...)ChattyDMhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06774125843333573256noreply@blogger.comBlogger127125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8088403589190592265.post-90343151116090732732007-11-10T22:17:00.001-05:002007-11-11T22:50:33.664-05:00

Oh well, it went a lot easier than expected!The physical move to my new Fortress of Crunch has been successful. Not perfect, but successful.I will pull the plug on this here blog-iteration soon. I would appreciate you saunter on to my new HQ.... just be careful not to bump in Ogre Laborers while visiting the place.Thanks for reading, this move to swankier quarters would not have happened if it

ChattyDMhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06774125843333573256noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8088403589190592265.post-67902848448946974742007-11-10T19:16:00.000-05:002007-11-10T20:25:33.136-05:00

Decrypted from a junk post on alt.conspiracy.inconnu on November 8, 2007. Author: woKened_up_S75. It's so easy to steal copies of classified reports when you happen to be the one who wrote them... well at least, technically speaking I did.I finally made the classes and am just one day shy of being a fully licensed Intrusion Detection Agency agent (IDA for all those Cold-War nostalgics ). Yup, I

ChattyDMhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06774125843333573256noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8088403589190592265.post-7495058579642437692007-11-10T06:35:00.000-05:002007-11-10T07:06:49.636-05:00

Sketch by Veronica Pare (She's awesome!!!!)I just secured my very own domain name (Thanks Ve4!) and opened me an honest to God Web site!I installed Wordpress on it... you can see it in all it's empty splendor at:chattydm.net (simple, elegant, refined... so totally unlike me!)It will have its own email (chattydm(at)chattydm(dot)(net).Here's my planned to do list:Choose a cool theme (which will

ChattyDMhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06774125843333573256noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8088403589190592265.post-48427802370094217282007-11-09T22:53:00.000-05:002007-11-09T23:02:33.699-05:00

A few days ago, my good friend Stupid Ranger posted on inspiration about playing the game and writing about it in the blog. In that post I added a comment about an interesting experience I had with my friend Math. I'm reposting an expanded version of the comment here... not very original I agree, but I'd like to keep a version open for discussion over here.Some time between this game and that

ChattyDMhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06774125843333573256noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8088403589190592265.post-59328646482341064822007-11-09T05:00:00.000-05:002007-11-09T08:24:19.891-05:00

Well it was only a matter of time. Franky went completely bonkers over Monte's World of Darkness d20 game and he's bought d20 Modern, the Menace Manual and other books of the genre...I can't say I blame him... I mean look at my library... and those are mostly 3.5 books!Anyhoo, while we were supposed to have Franky's game as a filler for when we couldn't reach Quorum for mine, Franky really

ChattyDMhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06774125843333573256noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8088403589190592265.post-10603184359517616952007-11-08T09:07:00.001-05:002007-11-09T05:19:00.417-05:00

Part 1 can be found here. The players decided to go explore the Necropolis to find where the seven plant-creatures that survived the streets of Ptolus were headed for. They met once again with the leaders of the Keepers of the Veil who gave them another healing package (a 5 charge wand of Restoration and a few potions of Cure Moderate wounds).Aside: One of our House rules is that no skills are

ChattyDMhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06774125843333573256noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8088403589190592265.post-51058459675545948442007-11-07T13:40:00.000-05:002007-11-09T05:25:07.249-05:00

Previously on Phil's game...Our yet unnamed band of heroes foiled the plans of evil Fey renegades by breaking up their drug ring in the Warrens of Ptolus. Said drug whose mellowing effect hides a terrifying price for those who abuse it: complete and irreversible transformation in a hideous plant-like humanoid monster. The Heroes then return to the Keepers of the Veil in order to report their

ChattyDMhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06774125843333573256noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8088403589190592265.post-62741784094527987612007-11-06T20:11:00.000-05:002007-11-07T13:40:09.941-05:00

After the extreme crunchiness of the last few days, here is some lighter fare. It's time for another edition of Lillie's Journal written by Yan! As promised, I'll follow up tomorrow with my DM Chronicles of the same game but from the DM's view (with a little extras that covers the things Lillie wasn't party to in last Friday's game).Prior posts of this series can be found here. Enjoy!As I'm

ChattyDMhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06774125843333573256noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8088403589190592265.post-5639009433025990632007-11-05T14:49:00.000-05:002007-11-06T21:57:57.994-05:00

Now this is one lengthy crunchy post, I hope you'll enjoy it as much as I did writing it. Although I must admit that I've never worked so hard for a role playing game before. Monte, Wolfgang and all game designers, developers and writers out there, you have my utmost and eternal respect!Part 1 can be found here.Here is a new D&D-compatible 20 level core character class (complete with old

ChattyDMhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06774125843333573256noreply@blogger.com14tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8088403589190592265.post-4616171925181897372007-11-05T05:39:00.000-05:002007-11-05T05:53:57.825-05:00

It seems that my strategy to contain the Spambot invasion within the same post has backfired on me as they ingeniously started throwing Sex ads... more than 10 just last night. Such links are not what I want on this blog.So on top of deleting them all, I activated Blogger's Word Verification system for comments (Colloquially called Captcha).Which means that in order for you to leave a comment,

ChattyDMhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06774125843333573256noreply@blogger.com17tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8088403589190592265.post-4004581090428009972007-11-04T19:37:00.000-05:002007-11-04T21:48:38.839-05:00

One of the core premises of our current campaign is "Play the character you want to play". As this is possibly our last D&D 3.5 game, we agreed that everyone would play along these lines, irrespective of party roles ... if there was to be no rogues or clerics, so be it, a large part of the loot was going to pay for healing and Reflex Save buffs.As mentioned before, once the campaign started, we

ChattyDMhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06774125843333573256noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8088403589190592265.post-63883756252466663452007-11-04T06:16:00.000-05:002007-11-04T07:27:05.730-05:00

Posted on November 4, 2007I have been posting some open game content of the D&D game for quite some time now with the usual nonchalance of the internet user. While I've been joking about how having a Cease and Desist letter by Wizards would validate this blog's existence, I don't actually want any real beef with anyone. Especially if this blogging gig ever develops in anything.Furthemore, I

ChattyDMhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06774125843333573256noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8088403589190592265.post-24773214659773139642007-11-03T16:19:00.000-04:002007-11-03T17:21:32.255-04:00

We had a great game yesterday and I'll have a lot to say about it soon. However, I'd like to post Yan's journal entry 1st so I can build on it instead of playing it safe. So you'll see it all later this week.Yesterday before the game, I went to my Favorite Local Game Store (FLGS) to buy Franky's birthday gift (which is going to be great for his new McWod game).I also bought an ancient copy of

ChattyDMhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06774125843333573256noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8088403589190592265.post-37687022247813272312007-11-02T14:31:00.001-04:002007-11-02T14:47:28.150-04:00

As you may have noticed, Spambots have started landing on my Four on the Floor Meme post.I don't intend to do anything other than delete them as they come.... As long as they stay confined to this post, which, oddly enough, is the only post that has a backlink to it.I'd really rather not have to activate a Captcha (unless I find one like Shamus that shows a unique really simple word) or activate

ChattyDMhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06774125843333573256noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8088403589190592265.post-66675467159394415852007-11-01T15:37:00.000-04:002007-11-04T06:10:41.697-05:00

This is PM's second post of his Casual Player approach to D&D. Once again, PM's wry humour entertains us in his tale of confronting his fears about that nasty multi-headed beast that is Role-Playing!Last week, my inner half-orc took a few steps out of the closet and while it was a bit scary out there, nothing bad happened. Well nothing too bad. I might not have absolute proof of this, but I

ChattyDMhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06774125843333573256noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8088403589190592265.post-39420535478570785512007-10-31T15:07:00.000-04:002007-11-01T08:39:26.310-04:00

This is a boring, repeating preface nobody reads anymore. It links to stuff I wrote some time ago that has a vague thematic link to what I'm about to write here...Actually this is a Very D&D specific Trope post. It features a lot of Crunchy bits... like the candy I'm eating right now...The kids are trick or treating with my adorable gamer-friendly wife. My five-year old Sith Lord and my 4

ChattyDMhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06774125843333573256noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8088403589190592265.post-17321678288747252712007-10-30T15:41:00.000-04:002007-10-31T02:55:47.884-04:00

Okay, so this week's game is a transition from my adaptation of the Vile Addiction adventure (From Dungeon Magazine #145) to its sequel, Spawn of Sehan from #146.Going in this week's preparations, I had the following goals:Focus the adventure on the more impatient Butt Kickers like Eric and Math to make up for last game's Storyteller's festival.Introduce Stef's new Character, a Half-Dragon (Brass

ChattyDMhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06774125843333573256noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8088403589190592265.post-43248557271269346402007-10-29T19:27:00.000-04:002007-10-30T08:10:24.825-04:00

Tonight I had planned to write an Adventure Prep post for this week's game, but I don't have a lot of time and will do it Tuesday evening. Instead I'm whipping up a short post on some Fluffy tools I use to better create a sense of immersion in our games.One of the walls of my basement gaming room features 2 very useful props.1) A large Vinyl map of Ptolus, the city where the campaign is based.

ChattyDMhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06774125843333573256noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8088403589190592265.post-12421582040620020072007-10-28T17:48:00.000-04:002007-10-29T07:51:50.490-04:00

As I was gearing up for preparing this week's game, I reviewed the player's 'satisfaction levels' with their characters. By tackling this early this week, I might be able to address any issues before Friday's game.For those who follow the antics of my gaming group (either from my logs or from a Yan's) you probably noticed that everything is going pretty smoothly for Eric (Book of 9 Swords'

ChattyDMhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06774125843333573256noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8088403589190592265.post-18013335173769712802007-10-27T19:12:00.000-04:002007-10-28T14:51:42.664-04:00

I'm having a successful run with my posts on coolness and applying tropes to tabletop RPGs. Today I'd like to start a new series that tackles the actual tropes that generate from Tabletop roleplaying instead of other narrative media. The idea came to me while reading a tabletop RPG debate on the TV Tropes forum.Once again, a trope can be defined as:A common pattern or theme within a narrative

ChattyDMhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06774125843333573256noreply@blogger.com15tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8088403589190592265.post-83961005437713635162007-10-26T06:22:00.000-04:002007-10-27T10:23:52.558-04:00

This post features extensive spoilers for the 1st Pathfinder Adventure path adventure "Burnt Offering"Last night we played the introduction D&D game I talked about earlier this week. It was a good game and while I completely realize that I might be expecting too much from D&D, it could have gone better.... but this time, it was the Dice's fault, and not so much my own set!I traveled to the Sunny

ChattyDMhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06774125843333573256noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8088403589190592265.post-23287744196973820672007-10-26T05:07:00.000-04:002007-10-26T06:25:21.317-04:00

Meta-blogging post alert...After nearly 2 months of Ad Sense and referral adds, I pulled in a Whopping 2$ (Canadian, mind you). I initially put ads on the page because I was curious to see how it worked.Since I'm nowhere near the threshold 1000 pageviews a day point (which would land about 0,15$ a day), I average between 200 and 300 page views a day (sometimes mostly mine it seems... lol!), its

ChattyDMhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06774125843333573256noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8088403589190592265.post-48412732270265553202007-10-25T19:16:00.001-04:002007-10-26T07:39:45.120-04:00

Image Source: Paizo's Pathfinder Wallpaper found here*.According to Google Analytics, the 1st search result that lands people here is 'Pathfinder' (at 11,6%), right before my 'Nom de Plume' (which doesn't mean 'My name is Plum!'). So there seems to be some genuine interest in Paizo's Pathfinder Adventure Magazine on the Web. Since I just got issue #2 from the the mail this afternoon (as my

ChattyDMhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06774125843333573256noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8088403589190592265.post-76952312393134007492007-10-24T20:08:00.000-04:002007-10-25T20:50:23.892-04:00

Image Source: The one and only PM!This is part of a continuing series of articles that tackles the concepts of tropes and how they can be applied by a DM/GM to improve their favorite Role-Playing game adventures. It is heavily inspired by the sheer goodness of the TV Tropes Wiki.Ahhhh Evil, evil, evil... Misunderstood, detectable, and too often Color Coded so the characters can know, beyond the

ChattyDMhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06774125843333573256noreply@blogger.com15tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8088403589190592265.post-45958060631947781232007-10-24T11:27:00.000-04:002007-10-24T15:01:36.553-04:00

As we where heading back to find the drug lab, seven other Spriggan were blocking our path.They were the remaining force of the Dogbane House and they got to see the unconscious form of their leader, Raketi in our grasp. To my surprise they started talking to me in Sylvan, stating that they had been mislead by Raketi and brought in this disgraceful situation by his actions. They did not really

ChattyDMhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06774125843333573256noreply@blogger.com5