Critical Hits Podcast #9: Actual Play with James Wyatt

Submitted by The Game on Friday, August 22, 20084 Comments

During GenCon 2008, Bartoneus, ChattyDM, GamingSteve, and myself had the privilege to be in a D&D session run by James Wyatt, author of the DMG (who we interviewed later on in the con- this is the game we referenced at the beginning of the interview.)

It was a straightforward dungeon delve, with Wyatt starting the game by asking us questions to let us shape our quest. Of course, being bloggers, we didn’t exactly take everything seriously. At the beginning of the game, we told him that we would easily be as funny as the Penny Arcade guys.

We managed to record the first encounter, plus some of the second. After the recorder died, we took out the hobgoblins, but then were defeated by the hag in the room. What followed was an awesome impromptu skill challenge, negotiating with the hag to save our miserable lives. And just when we had reached an agreement… we had to go. But still, the whole thing was a blast, and I hope by listening to the recording that you are able to experience part of what it’s like to play with a celebrity DM.

Critical Hits Podcast #9 (40 MB, approximiately an hour and a half long)

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Dave The Game is Dave Chalker, son of science fiction author Jack L. Chalker. In addition to being a semi-professional game designer Dave is the Editor-in-Chief of Critical Hits (which means he writes about everything.) Dave is also Executive Director of the RPG Bloggers Network. (Email Dave)

4 Comments »

The Chatty DM said:

Thank you for recording this, it will help me remember this game for all my life.

James is an awesome DM and I’m very happy that he co-designed my favorite game.

Oh and the tiles he used were all from the Halls of the Giant Kings Tiles.

The Chatty DM’s last post: Chatty’s Bedtime Campaign: Bend it like Nico!

- 23 August 2008 at 7:05 am

the_blunderbuss said:

I’m actually looking forward to listening to a D&D play for the first time. My experience has been first handed (is that how you say it?) and this should add some perspective to it.

By the way, how were the Gen Con games organized? How much time did you have to play and what were the general guidelines?

the_blunderbuss’s last post: Gorilla Jam! ep2: Good Vibrations!

- 23 August 2008 at 10:38 am

The Game (author) said:

Chatty: You should make your players listen to it, so they can hear what a disruptive player you are

Blunderbuss: Our experience was a bit different than most, since it was a press game arranged outside of the normal GenCon system. We had a block of three hours scheduled, but there were some delays getting James the equipment he needed, so we probably played for about 2 hours all together. Though I really enjoyed just sitting around and talking to him before the game started.

- 23 August 2008 at 10:45 am

Mark said: