Tag - ChattyDM

Entries feed - Comments feed

Sunday, April 18 2010

Revenge of the dailies

By Eric Maziade on Sunday, April 18 2010, 09:31 - Dungeons and Dragons

Painting walls, hauling furniture and chatting with ChattyDM for the better part of a day can yield some interesting discussions.

While I've been planting the seeds of a return to DnD within my old gaming group, my DM (let's call him Steve, because that's his name) is considering selling his collection of 4th ed books, having moved over to Pathfinder. Seems like none of his other gaming groups liked 4th ed.

ChattyDM was wondering what his other players didn't like about 4th ed. While I didn't really press the matter with Steve, it got ChattyDM to tell me *gasp* one thing that... let's say itches him from 4th ed.

Daily powers.

  1. Not hitting with a daily power is frustrating.
  2. Using a daily power makes the players want to take an extended rest instead of a short rest. Always.

Not hitting with a daily power is frustrating Alot

frustrated_alot.gif

Yes. While some dailies have a miss effect, some don't and missing becomes an even more frustrating event.

I've play-tested this house rule in the game I played yesterday night in my head and it worked perfectly:

A missed daily that has no "miss" effect is automatically regenerated after a short rest.

Using a daily power makes PCs want to take extended rests.

I know of this - this is why I collect scroll and potions and never use them. In computer RPGs, I hoard them and use them just in the fight with the final boss.

At the end of Dragon Age, my bard chugged down so many potions, it had to ask the dragon to wait while she went peeing.

red-dragon.jpg

Scarcity of resources make them more valuable - I tend not to use them, in case a better opportunity to use them present itself.

I do have a clever house rule here... but first, I need to say that most of the times, players can take an extended rest after a fight. I take an extended rest after every day at work. I don't have a problem with players always taking extended rests.

I love the idea of creating situations where it is not a good idea to take an extended rest - it enhances the stress of using dailies (or of extended resting).

Back to the clever house rule. If you can, remember your first level wizard in 2nd ed, when it missed its only spell and was scared of taking out its sling in case a monster would notice him, spit on his face from a distance, removing the last of his 1d4 worth of HP?

My house rule builds on the same mechanisms we used back then to deal with it:

Suck it up

What are your feelings on 4th ed and dailies?

Original Alot, from Hyperbole and a Half, which you should be reading.
Red Dragon from Dungeon and Dragon's 3rd Edition Player's handbook. Wuss adventurer added on it by an artist I don't know.

22 comments

Saturday, January 23 2010

Good bye ChattyDM.net - hello Critical-Hits.com

By Eric Maziade on Saturday, January 23 2010, 20:36 - Dungeons and Dragons

As some of you might know, ChattyDM.net is soon to "close" and be merged with Critical Hits - another pretty cool RPG blog.

I was goofing off in Chatty's comment board and suggested he get himself an audio bumper for when users switch to his category on the new Web site.

Here's what silliness I ended up coming with (click on the "play" button below...):

Critical Hits!

Chatty DM

Playing as a grown man

Rollin' 20s

Way in his thirties

What will he write next?

We can only guess

(I kinda like the "Critical Hits" scream!)

no comment

Sunday, January 17 2010

What the future holds

By Eric Maziade on Sunday, January 17 2010, 09:18 - General

Wow are things slower than slow around here!

People who know me in the net might have noticed my prolongated absence these last few weeks (or have they been months?)

Lots of stuff happening in real life slowing this end of my activity spectrum. A large chunk of it is my mom's cancer diagnostic and the preparation for the treatments (surgery, chemotherapy and radiotherapy) that are to start in a few short weeks.

While my DnD playing has just about stopped (my regular group has been tougher to gather), my love of board games has been rekindled.

I have also had the pleasure to be invited as a regular player to a game of Star Wars RPG by Franky (one of ChattyDM's buddies) and had the pleasure to be invited at their table during a "Geek Out Day".

"Geek Out Day" came not too long about I learned about my mother's condition and was a very welcome event - I absolutely loved the games I played (Chinatown got to be on my "to buy" list) and especially the company I was with. The movie was cool as well. Can't thank you guys enough! :)

Since then, I've been toying with the idea of doing some sort of "Geek Out Fridays" - I have a lot of friends who like board games and we all have lots of board games. Maybe that'll be something to blog about :P

My soon-to-be-wife, in a successful attempt to cheer me up, planned a surprise "geekout" last Friday and invited all of regular group of friends to play board games - of my choosing, none the less!

I had to let go of my planned evening of Dragon Age and instead had tremendous fun playing "Citadelles" and "Le Cercle". Many thanks to my buddies and to my fiancée for the amazing evening!

I've also had a request directly from Simon - the boy for whom I DMed more than a year ago - for another session of DnD. He asked me if they would play the same characters and if they would get to level 2.

For this blog, it means : be ready to hear my thoughts about board games and some more Dungeon Master prepping (letting go of the training scenario I discussed earlier). All of this sporadically, of course :)

no comment

Sunday, August 30 2009

Tales of the City Within, Session 3: The Final Chapter

By Eric Maziade on Sunday, August 30 2009, 00:22 - Dungeons and Dragons

I had a chance to play with ChattyDM and his bunch of merry players a few weeks ago and really had a blast!

For the occasion, I rolled up Kellen, a level 10 bard which I tried to make into an actor instead of the usual musician.

I warmed up rather rapidly to Phil's group and in no time I felt at home among fellow geeks.

I won't bore you with the details of the events of the game itself - better bloggers have done it before me and Kellen tried to sing about it in his own cryptic way.

One of the things that marked me the most was how group composition impacts how the game plays. My and Phil's group have roughly the same number of players, but we have wildly different compositions.

To my sense, his group is composed mostly of butt-kickers, tacticians and story-tellers - most players being a blend of these.

I could ask the shaman about how he actually perceives spirits and he could explain to me how he envisions all the workings of his magics in rather striking details.

While in combat, making our powers work together was a breeze - whenever my bard could do something to make a friend or a foe move on the board, I had suggestions from multiple players on how to make the best out of that move... making the bard an impressive cog in the butt-kicking team we were making.

Role-play wise, there wasn't much to speak about. I came in geared in, ready to role play my awkward little gnome but did not find or generate much opportunities for it.

Of course, this was to be the last game of the season aimed to close a few loose ends - no time to chit-chat and plenty of monsters to vanquish.

All and all, it was a wonderful experience that I wouldn't mind repeating if I ever get the chance :)

After this night of adventures, I still had to get ready and run the game I was supposed to run a month ago with my own group - the game session was scheduled for the next day and I had a few cool scenes prepared that I thought could intrigue my own players.

no comment

Friday, July 10 2009

An interesting lunch with ChattyDM (did I post this too early?)

By Eric Maziade on Friday, July 10 2009, 10:08 - General

Monkey-typing.jpg This is what you get after a mostly sleepless night, playing with the awesome Ghost Buster video game demo, having a rough morning getting the kids used to kindergarten and looking forward to a lunch with a friend.

This morning my kids woke me up earlier than usual. I helped my wife to get them ready and, since they don't go to kindergarten on Friday, I went back to bed for an extra 30 minutes of sleep.

What resulted is an odd dream - too odd not to share.

So I was diving my car, going to meet ChattyDM for our scheduled lunch. Except this time, it was at his house. So I got there: a enormous mansion. Lots of people and servants working fervently. Looks like they're preparing for Chatty's daughter birthday party.

A skinny hispanic-looking man comes to greet me: "Hey! Mr Maze!", he says. At first, I don't recognize him - but it gets obvious that this is ChattyDM, who obviously (and dramatically) changed his appearance. Chatty talks like a gangster from Godfather - the Italian accent and all.

So we talk business (biz-a-nesse) for a while... and about personal matters. The "impostor" knows everything I know about Chatty and knows about our previous chats and inside jokes.

Eventually, I just can't contain myself: "who are you?", I ask.

- Well, I'm ChattyDM, of course.

- I know ChattyDM... I've met Phil a few times. You're not Phil.

- I'm not Phil. I'm Chatty DM. We all are ChattyDM.

He pulls a conveniently placed curtain and reveals a bunch of guys sitting in front of computers, writing blog posts and constantly chatting about feats, skills and challenges.

- Uh?

- See, ChattyDM is a collaborative effort. We all pitch in. Sorry Phil couldn't make it to the lunch. Will you stay for my daughter's party?

So I stayed for the party, where hundreds of people purchased each tens of gifts. Somehow, a gift I bought for my boy got mixed in there. So I dove into the pile of gifts to retrieve it. Then the Hispanic ChattyDM tried to get away (?), so I ran after him. I had to fight countless illusions with my proton pack before being turned to goo and waking up as some sort of sentient slime thingy in a coffee cup.

Then I woke up.

I rarely remember my dreams... this is probably one of the strangest ones. I feel like I've been railroaded in that one.

Typing Monkey found on Wikipedia

2 comments

- page 1 of 4