 Greetings, and welcome to the weekly Gauntlet Hangouts video roundup! Don't miss any of the great sessions in the updated playlists and video links below. Star Wars Saturday
1%er Swoop Gang 2 (Session 2 of 4) Rich Rogers runs for Greg G., Josh DeGagne, Joshua Gilbreath, Lonnie Spangler, and Luiz Ferraz A Heist, A Murder, and a Betrayal, who could ask for anything more? TGI Thursday Band of Blades (Session 2 of 4) Lowell Francis runs for Agatha, Ary Ramsey, Steven Watkins, and Vince Gauntlet Quarterly Gauntlet League Wrestling: Season 3 (Session 5) Lowell Francis runs for Chris Newton, Gerwyn Walters, and Tyler Lominack Family matters hang heavy over the promotion as the Kraken returns and the MC belt finally changes hands. The Gaunt Marches Freebooters on the Frontier: The Sickness (Session 2 of 3) Horst Wurst runs for Jason Hobbs, João, Kinote, Ludovico Alves, and Sherm The Unicorn reminds them of their lost innocence. A deal is struck. The sacred glade and a mushroom ring. A skeleton writhes in green fire. Dungeon World: The Path of Wickedness Richard Ruane runs for Alex, Bryen Alperin, Pat P., and Spencer Paskett In which the swamps are traversed, a festival takes place far away, a mage and a kobold see what they miss the most, a swarm-wanderer learns one potential future, and an elementalist and the wind end up on better terms. Dungeon World (Session 2 of 4) Spencer Paskett runs for Bryen Alperin, Greg G., Ryan, and Stephen Our heroes get to decide which they like more, the Fey bathhouse or the the Crocodile swim party. Which would you choose? Gauntlet Hangouts Monsterhearts 2: Once Again, We Return (Session 2 of 5) Patrick Knowles runs for Alex, David Rothfeder, Lauren, and Ryan M. Where we see the Gods in their holy of holies - and then we see them knock it all down. Plus prophecies, performances, plunging, peacocking, portents, post-cognition, peril, & p'making out. Like, p'making out hard! All Systems Nominal: Inner Sphere 3054 Series (Session 2 of 3) Kyle Thompson runs for Bryan, Fraser Simons, Lauren, and Taejas The mercenaries of Vinson's Vigilantes' Omega Lance meet up with a new comrade from Lambda Lance and assault the defenses of the Veracruz Central Dam in a pitched battle! The Final Girl: Alacran Pat P. runs for David Jay, Greg G., and Luiz Ferraz The denizens of a small desert community must deal with the aftermath of toxic waste dumping near their homes. Monsterhearts 2: Santa Teresa Confidential (Session 2 of 4) Shane Liebling runs for Lauren, Mark Causey, Michael X. Heiligenstein, and Richard Ruane Get ready for the feels, because they are gonna hit ya. The Republic Mikael Tysvær runs for Leandro Pondoc, Paul Spraget, and Steven Monsterhearts: Kingsport '76 (Session 3 of 4) Catherine Ramen runs for Bethany H., Dylan R., Jesse A., and Jim Crocker School's out and time to get a job at Friendly's. Tom is having disturbing dreams, Evelyn's mom might want an exorcism, Jackie hears the call of the wild, and Calvin ponders: family or friends, land or water? Veil 2020: Land of the Free (Session 10) Fraser Simons runs for Alex, Asher, Darren Brockes, Joshua Gilbreath, Kurt Potts, and Lauren The Neon Road - In the offshore colonies the crew search for a way to get to Texas and find their way to the underground street fights as Arasaka grows closer. Blades in the Dark: The War in Crow's Foot (Session 3 of 5) Yoshi Creelman runs for Dr. Jason Cox, Joshua Gilbreath, and Sarah J. Gathering information via a ghost via a demon was obviously the "best" decision. Choices were made, consequences were had... eventually they get some useful information. Pigsmoke: Summer School (Session 2 of 4) Tyler Lominack runs for Asher, Ludovico Alves, and Pawel S. Professors publish, students grow odder, and our visiting professor from Arcadia begins to arouse suspicions. Check out all the great videos on The Gauntlet YouTube channel and be sure check out the playlists to catch up on all your favorite Gauntlet Hangouts games. If you'd like to play in games like these, check out the Gauntlet Hangouts Google+ Community where game signups are announced! To support The Gauntlet and Gauntlet Hangouts, please visit the Gauntlet Patreon at https://patreon.com/gauntlet where $7 and up patrons get priority RSVP for Gauntlet Hangouts games. Enjoy, and everyone have a great weekend!
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Paint the Scene (on the Side of a Van): The Purple Planet as a Post-Conservative Apocalypse8/16/2018 When I first saw the cover of Dungeon Crawl Classics #84.3: Sky Masters of the Purple Planet, I was instantly drawn to it. I give credit to Doug Kovacs’s colorful and visceral artwork, but what really stuck with me was the title. It bounced around in my head unceasingly until I was compelled to ring it up. I wasn’t familiar with DCC, and my fantasy roleplaying didn’t tend to involve dungeon delving, but it was just too cool to pass up. And of course, when I had finished reading through #84.3, I made my way back to #84 proper: Peril on the Purple Planet. Mmmm, plosives. I’ll admit that I didn’t come by the Old School Renaissance honestly; I was not around for the halcyon days of the Red Box and its brethren. However, I found myself feeling a strange sensation, a nostalgia for a time that I never experienced. Something about the OSR was very compelling to me, and I wanted to experience it for myself. To prepare myself for running a couple of one-shots of Peril on the Purple Planet for Gauntlet Con 2017 (using World of Dungeons), I did three things: purchase some fuzzy velvet psychedelic posters, marinate myself in the “Appendix N,” and listen to as much Black Sabbath as humanly possible. One song in particular resonated with me while reading Peril: “War Pigs” from the fan-favorite “Paranoid” album. The song equates politicians and generals with scheming sorcerers, turning the impoverished into cogs for their war machine. I saw a lot of parallels with the Purple Planet’s Ascended Masters: mad tyrants who have twisted the inhabitants of the doomed planet into mindless barbarians to fight an endless war. It’s hard to say if author Harley Stroh was directly inspired by Sabbath’s work, but I’m certain that many of the early players of Dungeons and Dragons were fans of those fellow victims of the Satanic Panic, and it’s quite possible that there was some cross-pollination. More and more I’ve begun to view the Purple Planet (or at least the one that exists in my head) as a post-Conservative apocalypse; one possible doomed future should those that hold power continue to succeed in consolidating and hoarding it, and resisting progress. When an ill-fated bunch of fantasy adventurers are transported to the planet, they find themselves in a hopeless place and are not afforded opportunities to try to make things better for its inhabitants; at the very least, nothing can be done to forestall the demise of the weirdling sun and its destructive death knell. All they can hope to do is survive long enough to escape from the cursed world, and maybe learn something from the experience. So how can a GM inject those themes into a game without shoving a morality play down the players throats? Paint the Scene is an excellent technique for both creating player buy-in and reinforcing narrative themes in a game. Peril has several engaging set-pieces that we can leverage to write some great scene-painting questions. Here are some examples: Scene: Traveling through a psychedelic interdimensional tunnel before landing on a hard surface. Dazzling colors swirl around you. Your ears are filled with a cacophony of noises ranging from laughing children, screeching cats, and cries of pain and ecstasy. Paint the scene/introductory questions: What is the last thing you remember before finding yourself in this predicament? What vision do you see in the tunnel that leaves you filled with regret? Scene: Seeing the vista of the planet for the first time: Purple sand dunes, multi-colored forests, a mountain peak struck by green lightning, a plume of smoke in the distance, a dim red sun. Paint the scene/establishing questions based on class:
Scene: Entering a Kith encampment. The Kith are barbaric mutant humanoids with pale skin, blonde hair, and blue eyes.
Scene: Spying an Ascended Master true form for the first time; a giant robot topped with a human head in a jar. They are terrible and beautiful.
Scene: The shifting halls of a castle made entirely of smoke. Everything from the floors to the decor are formed completely from the thick, black smoke.
 by Larry S
This game of Lovecraftesque (by +Becky Annison and +Joshua Fox) ran on August 7th. We used the pre-made scenario, Mr. Giggles Comes to Dinner, by +Misha B. It was the first game that I facilitated on Gauntlet Hangouts. Fortunately, I had the support of a super imaginative and all-around cool group of players: +Robbie Boerth, +Vincent Eaton, and +Keith Stetson. Due technical problems, I was unable to record, which is partly why I wanted to do this write-up. I also wanted to reflect on how the game ran, what worked, and what could have gone better. Hopefully others find this extended meditation useful and/or entertaining! Synopsis The basic premise of the game was that Alex, a single parent, must uncover the horrible truth behind their child's (Sam) imaginary friend, Mr. Giggles. We began by fleshing out the scenario. Misha left some story elements undefined, including the Witness’s social identity. Misha used gender neutral names and pronouns and was silent on race or ethnicity. We consciously designed Alex against our understanding of prevalent cultural expectations. We figured that, if this scenario were a mainstream movie, then Alex would probably be a single mom (see, e.g., The Babadook, 2014), so we made Alex a man. As a chemist, Alex might be expected to be white or Asian, so we made him black. Part 1, scene 1: Our game opened in a parent-teacher conference. Alex appears harried after a long day at the chemical plant. A teacher (played by the Narrator) and the school principal (played by a Watcher) express concern about Sam's strange writings. Alex tries to minimize but is stopped short when the teacher holds a mirror next to the papers, revealing that the apparently illegible scrawling is actually backwards writing about “unsealing portals.” Coincidentally, a fluorescent ceiling light begins to flicker and strobe as the teacher flips through the pages of strange writing. Alex attempts to rationalize it away by pointing out that Sam could have learned these terms from him talking about work at the chemical plant. (One of Alex’s pre-determined traits is his penchant for rationalization.) Part 1, scene 2: Our next scene was set at Alex’s home immediately following the parent-teacher conference. Alex is trying to prepare dinner for Sam (Narrator) while her rambunctious friend Robin (Watcher) jumps on the sofa. As Alex takes some chips from the kitchen cabinet, he discovers that it and other items have been tampered with -- a thin incision in the packaging of several items. His discovery is interrupted by Robin, who pulls at the bottom of a stack of old pizza boxes, causing a cascade that sends forth several cockroaches. The cockroaches strangely scurry into the sink and down the drain. Part 1, scene 3: The next scene occurs in the same evening after Robin's mother has picked her up. Alex is brewing his own bug spray with household products. He hears voices coming from Sam's room. At first, Alex assumes Sam is just watching TV, but as he continues to listen, he realizes that Sam is conversing with someone else. Alex rationalizes that Sam must be talking on FaceTime. He swears as Sam ignores his protestations to stop dilly-dallying and finish her homework. Sam suddenly appears in the kitchen and tells Alex that she was talking to Mr. Giggles who is helping her do her homework. Part 1, scene 4: Later that night, Alex is awakened by a scratching sound coming from the wall separating his and Sam’s bedrooms. Alex finds Sam frantically drawing on the shared wall with crayons, many of which lay broken scattered at her feet. Sam has drawn a perfect circle. Strangely the top of the circle is too high for Sam to reach. When Alex attempts to snap Sam out of her stupor, she convulses and collapses in his arms. Part 1, scene 5: Alex rushes Sam to the ER. After testing, he learns that Sam has a strange heart condition: her heart is beating double-time, as if there are two heart beats, and yet her blood pressure is fine. As he exists, Alex catches a glimpse of the doctor whispering conspiratorially to a nurse. Part 2, scene 1: Alex takes Sam to a cardiologist and learns that Sam’s condition appears to be the result of the long-term ingestion of some substance. Alex responds defensively when the doctor inquires whether Sam could have gotten into Alex's chemicals at home. While conversing, Alex notices a single cockroach scurry across the floor. Other imperfections, like fingerprints on the computer screen, begin to pop into his view. Revolted by the poor hygienic conditions, Alex declines to have Sam submit to further testing at this office and asks for a referral. Part 2, scene 2: Alex begins to remove the wallpaper from the wall that Sam had drawn on earlier. He discovers that the circle has penetrated past the wallpaper and appears to be burned into the underlying wall itself. He becomes agitated as he struggles to rationalize away his discovery. As his mind reels, the wall within the circle crumbles, revealing a tunnel -- despite the fact that his bedroom should lie on the other side! Journey into darkness: Alex stumbles into the tunnel, following a rhythmic drumming which begins to sync with his own heartbeat. There is a sickly sweet and fetid odor in the air. He runs his hands against the wall of the tunnel and feels strange inscriptions with his fingertips. He eventually trips and passes out after hitting his head against a stone altar. The Final Horror: When he awakens, Alex finds himself in a massive cavern. Sam is there, too. When Alex tries to carry Sam away, he finds her rooted to the ground by masses of cockroaches swarming over her feet. Sam opens her mouth as if to speak but only a cockroach emerges. A shadow looms up from behind Alex. He turns and is confronted by a massive cockroach-like being. Sam begins to speak in the same voice as Mr. Giggles from her bedroom. (See Part 1, Scene 3.) The last words Alex hears is that “The portal has been opened. He has risen.” Epilogue: We learn that the small town was destroyed by a massive explosion. The distaster is attributed to the chemical plant, even though the investigation shows that the epicenter of the explosion was Alex’s home. Alex is found alive but unable to speak. The chemical plant scapegoats Alex for the explosion. Corroborating the plant’s narrative, a local news show interviews the cardiologist who recalls that Alex was seeing things (the cockroach in the examination room) and acting irrationally (refused treatment for Sam). Reflections Special cards - No one ended up using their special card. (The general rule of creeping horror prohibits the Narrator from introducing overtly supernatural elements or directly threatening the Witness. Special cards allow the narrator to break this rule under specified conditions.) This isn't necessarily a bad thing but it did feel like a pity not to engage this mechanic. There are two reasons for this lack of use: one, the trigger conditions (e.g., “you may play this card after a scene that includes dreams or visions”) needed to activate the cards were not satisfied; two, some of the cards could only be used in Part 2, which is only 1 to 3 scenes long. These restrictions are essentially a pacing mechanism to keep the “creep” in “creeping horror” -- i.e., to prevent the abrupt introduction of supernatural elements too early in the game. However, the trigger and timing conditions may be overly restrictive in practice, making the cards difficult or impossible to enter play at all. I may experiment with loosening or entirely removing these conditions in future games to see what effect this has on the narrative. The Final Horror -- Our Final Horror scene, while very cool and creepy, did not account for all the clues. I suspect this may be true for many Lovecraftesque games. It is a very tall order for the Narrator to weave the clues from the prior six to eight scenes into a single scene. I think some this pressure can be relieved by explicitly making it the job of the Narrators in the two subsequent epilogue scenes to continue incorporating any clues left unaccounted for in the Final Horror scene. Watchers -- Overall I was pleased to see that players were very active in the role of the Watcher. Watchers played a couple of secondary roles: the school principal and Robin (Sam's best friend). Watchers also took the initiative to offer creepy atmospheric details, some of which reoccurred across scenes (e.g., flickering lights, fetid odors). Indeed, one such atmospheric detail -- the cockroach -- became a central aspect of the Final Horror. I do feel, however, that as Narrators we could have invited our Watchers to elaborate more on the fiction. I will make an effort to remind myself and others to pose more questions to draw in the Watchers. Witness Traits -- Going into this game, I was skeptical that the procedure of noting new Witness traits after every scene was necessary or useful. I was wrong. This procedure does exactly what it was intended, namely, maintain continuity of the Witness's personality across scenes despite being played by multiple players. After each scene, we asked, “What if anything did we learn about Alex?” Sometimes the answer was nothing. Sometimes the answer was nothing really new but rather an elaboration of a pre-existing trait, e.g., Alex’s “background as scientist” became “an obsessive need to make sense of things.” In any case, the procedure forced us to think deeply about our characterization of Alex and probably helped prevent wild swings in our individual portrayals of Alex. In sum, I had a great time playing and hope to have an even more rewarding experience next time. If anyone has thoughts on the game or these reflections, you can provide feedback on Larry's original Google+ post here. a play report by Fraser Simons, Keeper of the Neon Veil (@frasersimons) Previously I shared some initial thoughts on The Gardens of Ynn and The Whitehack (links to both products will be at the bottom). We have finished up the two-shot and I have some more thoughts I'd like to share. First of all--damn what a cool point-crawl! There was always something mysterious, bizarre, and strange in every room. It always felt like we were on the cusp of discovering what the heck was going on. Unfortunately, we didn't get that deep into the "levels" of the Gardens so we didn’t actually discover what was happening. I think Horst Wurst said we got around 9 levels deep out of approximately 30, so it probably would have taken quite a while longer to complete the adventure. This session still felt very through the looking glass and haphazard; most likely because of the way the random tables were informing our fiction. We had some discussion about whether you might be able to generate a higher level of coherency if you decided to focus on your favorite elements, or perhaps even decide on a theme going in, and choose options to construct the rooms in a way that reinforced this preconceived goal. The players navigating in such a way would experience the "point" of the Gardens. This largely depends on GMing style and preference and the amount of time you have dedicated to these sessions. For me, I approach my characters in a meta way. I like to know the themes and tone and then decide what I'd like to explore in the fiction, crafting a character that specifically explores an intersection of these things. My feedback at the end was pretty much this. I would have liked to have figured out what was going on before we ended because I prefer it when there's a "point" to a narrative or story; reoccurring themes, a theme, etc. I'm not overly familiar with OSR products or the movement, in general. However, Horst told me that part of the the "point" of OSR is to craft your character as a reaction to the fiction and mechanics. You go in cold, shit happens to you, and the point is that the random shit that happens is the story. You roll random, "regular" people who get entangled in wild scenarios. Sometimes you figure out who your character is based on the random things you roll; even strange gear you have as a character in some systems informs your character because there must be a story as to why you have such random items, right? Slowly you see a storyline emerge from these unconnected details as you make sense of it with your imagination. You'd have never thought to craft such a person because it's so messy and haphazard that it'd have been near impossible to think that kind of shit up. As you all do this and experience these things together, you remember it and talk about it with your friends later; it is memorable because it is so strange or odd. If the module landed for you or if things made sense, the “point” being made is less important because you'll be remembering the chaotic events that occurred and how your friends reacted to them. To me, what Horst sounded like he was saying is that the point is the shit that happens along the way, not the overarching plot so much (if there is one at all). It seems like that makes thematic sense with the random table results we got and perhaps, then, never making it to the "end of the story" is fine. Personally, it would have never occured to me to run an adventure I knew we wouldn't finish, but scanning OSR materials and posts, it seems to be fairly common, actually. I really like that take. And, looking back on those two sessions, I found myself struggling because I clearly didn't grasp this point at all. While Jason Cordova, by contrast, as well as Paul Staxx Spraget and Agatha, just rolled with it, bringing a lot of characterization, while I was tied up with trying to figure out what was going on with this place. A few questions were posed to Jason's character, Vincenzo, through dreams which had a broad theme. Jason then had to incorporate this into his description of the dream. It worked so well!! It was my favorite part of the story, in fact. I expect if you played it through to the end, this would be happening more and more, revealing some of the mysteries hidden beneath the "levels" of the Garden. In retrospect, Horst was absolutely correct. I would have enjoyed the sessions a lot more had I been more focused on who my character was and how this place was affecting them. I was driven primarily by my desire to figure out what the heck was going on with this place and ended up missing the opportunities to flesh out my character. Despite that, I had a fantastic time. I took a lot of joy in others' strong roleplaying and the dynamics between the party members, and it was fun for me to try to figure out what was going on in the maze as we traversed it, even if we never found the answer. I can see the appeal of the OSR. This method of thinking does feel different than when I have played D&D and Pathfinder, and not in the way largely spoken about in my small little Twitter world and other social media. Usually, I have seen the OSR reduced to "people who want to play D&D like it used to be," and, sure, the various systems seem to boil down to that if you are being very reductive. Unfortunately, this reduction largely misses the beauty of emergent play ingrained here, something I have talked about frequently and absolutely adore in my games. In short: I hope to play more OSR stuff. I am sure there is a large breadth of products that aren't all focused on emergent aspects of play... but there's gotta be more products digging into this and I'd like to explore it. System Wise: Horst pitied us and decided we hit a milestone when we saved one of the lads we were looking for, leveling us up! I have to say, rolling the two hit dice to get 9 HP rather than 2 HP was more empowering than I thought it would be; it felt great! Poor Jason rolled two dice and got 3 HP... but continued to Thief it up and tap those fucking statues for traps like a boss. We also increased our Saving Throw and Attack Value, continuing on. A fast procedure that got us back into the fray quickly. After Christian Mehrstam let me know about the design intent and the point of being squishy (here), I intended to get some cool shit into the fiction; if that got killed--whatever. And so, as a monk from the Whispering Tear Monastery with my hand-carved staff, I destroyed the marble base of a statue, leaning on my "hard but not impossible" attunement to my staff that the deft class gave me. It felt awesome and led to some cool fiction, exposing a mysterious crypt filled with skeletons. We got to see the bidding mechanics, which I think I like? One-upping each other might lead to a gonzo tone, though. I generally prefer that scenes in crypts and shit be spooky and more "serious", rather than kinda funny when people all try and grab the loot. Applying the mechanic to other situations would be really fun and neat, though. A cool way to include multiple people in a scene when others might be bored with a scene consuming a bunch of time with one player. Looking at the system in a broad sense: I love it. I got to advocate for my character again in a different scene to get the double positive role; love that dynamic with the Referee. Narrowing on character creation specifically: I love love love love it. Because I missed the point, and kinda the spirit, of what we were up to with this point-crawl--it would have been a worse experience had we used a different system. Why? Character creation made me come up with the coolest bits about my character, and because I was focused on unraveling the mysteries of the Gardens rather than character work, these bits were the things I could reliably fall back on. I'm from a monastery, I know martial arts, I'm attuned to my staff, and I'm a wanderer. Had I gotten the same affliction as Jason's character, with the dream stuff, I would have been able to grab onto those bits to expound on them, I'm sure. Very cool. So as with the first session, I felt really supported and felt like my contributions to the fictions mattered. Love the scaffolding and I think it definitely implements the design goal of empowering the players and their characters in the world, shaping it in ways that make the player excited. I want to play more and get more slots, changeup and grow my Groups. Hit on the stuff I have already to try and leverage more double positive rolls. Totally down to play more Whitehack and OSR stuff; see if I can't adjust my brain to this different mentality. Thanks so much to Horst for running and to the players; all of whom were fantastic! Hope to play some more of this kind of stuff as it has proven that I don't dislike fantasy, I dislike D&D and Pathfinder. Neat.  Greetings, and welcome to the weekly Gauntlet Hangouts video roundup! Don't miss any of the great sessions in the updated playlists and video links below. Star Wars Saturday
1%er Swoop Gang 2 (Session 1 of 4) Rich Rogers runs for Aybars Yurdun, Greg G., Josh DeGagne, Lonnie Spangler, and Luiz Ferraz Cantinas! Freeing slaves! Stormtroopers! George Michael references? TGI Thursday Band of Blades (Session 1 of 4) Lowell Francis runs for Agatha, Ary Ramsey, Steven, and Vincent The battle lost, a Legion squad destroys a bridge to cover the retreat from the Cinder King's undead horde. Gauntlet Quarterly Gauntlet League Wrestling: Season 3 (Session 4) Lowell Francis runs for Alex, Chris Newton, Gerwyn Walters, James, Matt, and Tyler Lominack Old hands return to upset the promotion's established order and a family tragedy disrupts the main event. Gaunt Marches Freebooters on the Frontier: Gaunt Marches - The Sickness (Session 1 of 3) Horst Wurst runs for Jason Hobbs, João, Kinote, and Sherm Fortune seekers and scoundrels venture into the forest to find a mysterious cave under a pool of water, where a being from another plane is trapped. Dungeon World: Gaunt Marches - A Narrow Way Richard Ruane runs for Alex, Bryen, David Jay, Jennifer, and Pat P. A Gaunt Marches session in which an elementalist confesses his sins, a priest drives away an undead swarm, a mage of winter gains a burning scar, a shapeshifter keeps a secret, and a kobold slays a fiend. Gauntlet Hangouts All Systems Nominal: Inner Sphere 3054 Series (Session 1 of 3) Kyle Thompson runs for Bryan, Fraser Simons, Lauren, and Shane Liebling Ill-used by the house of Steiner-Davion in the Clan War, the mercenaries of Vinson's Vigilantes turn pirate and raid the legendary Coventry Metal Works for what they are rightfully due! Tall Pines Ryan M. runs for Ellen Saxon, Sidney, and Tyler Lominack Tall Pines' best and brightest is found dead. A federal agent suspects it's another of the Mechanic Murders, but none of the town's hands are clean. Dialect Yoshi Creelman facilitates for Agatha, Kurt Potts, Lauren, and Michael X. Heiligenstein The corps biospheres and influence are ever expanding, how will Mix, Silver, Lusi, Kishta, Novita, and the colorful community react? How will the community collapse? Monsterhearts 2: Once Again, We Return (Session 1 of 5) Patrick Knowles runs for Alex, David Rothfeder, Lauren, and Ryan M. Character- and world-building for Patrick's first test of a mashup of The Wicked + The Divine and Monsterhearts 2! Monsterhearts 2: Santa Teresa Confidential (Session 1 of 4) Shane Liebling runs for Lauren, Mark Causey, Michael X. Heiligenstein, and Richard Ruane Blades in the Dark: The War in Crow's Foot (Session 2 of 5) Yoshi Creelman runs for Bryan, Chris Thompson, Joshua Gilbreath, and Sarah J. A new character joins in as the looting from the Red Sashes continues. Veil 2020: Land of the Free (Session 9) Fraser Simons runs for Alex, Darren Brockes, J.D., Joshua Gilbreath, and Lauren Arasaka's Ploy - Three new cyberpunks join the crew just as it's revealed that their new fixer, Hart, is a plant by Arasaka. Monsterhearts: Kingsport '76 (Session 2 of 4) Catherine Ramen runs for Bethany H., Dylan R., Jim Crocker, and Rory A beer party on Kingsport Head leads to a surprising revelation, acid trips, hallucinations of a giant eye, Fleetwood Mac sing-alongs, and spiteful magic. And just what does Preacher Jimmy want? Check out all the great videos on The Gauntlet YouTube channel and be sure check out the playlists to catch up on all your favorite Gauntlet Hangouts games. If you'd like to play in games like these, check out the Gauntlet Hangouts Google+ Community where game signups are announced! To support The Gauntlet and Gauntlet Hangouts, please visit the Gauntlet Patreon at https://patreon.com/gauntlet where $7 and up patrons get priority RSVP for Gauntlet Hangouts games. Enjoy, and everyone have a great weekend!
Fifth grade was a little better, but only because I managed to become somewhat invisible. I started getting rides home from school. My teacher was nicer, and I would occasionally escape recess by finding excuses to talk to her during that time. And fifth graders were allowed to roam a bit more, which meant I could walk to the far side of the activities field and just be by myself. There were still plenty of times I couldn’t escape, such as standing in line for lunch or whatever, but I learned to hollow myself out, so the taunts didn’t have as much impact.
I was a lonely, isolated kid. And I was miserable. SIDS (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome) was in the news around that time, and I remember thinking I wished there was something like that for older kids. The idea of just randomly dying in the middle of the night had a lot of appeal. But then the Marvel Super Heroes role playing game happened. I was in a comic book shop and convinced my Dad to buy it for me. I didn’t really know what it was, only that it was a game about comic book characters and you got to be them somehow. In fact, I spent weeks poring over it, but I could never figure out, precisely, what I was supposed to be doing. I was still in the fifth grade, and I had never even heard of Dungeons & Dragons or any game like it. But then this older kid came over one day and ran it for me. I played a villain (I’m pretty sure my powers had something to do with electricity, because the ability to shoot electricity from my hands was probably the most amazing thing I could imagine at the time). He seemed very knowledgeable about it all and gave me a simple starting scenario (robbing a jewelry store), and very gently walked me through how to make things happen in the game. He described things happening. He asked “What do you do?” a lot. He was very patient as he pointed out the things I needed to know about FASERIP. I was enchanted. Maybe it’s because he was being nice to me, but playing this game felt like the best thing I had ever experienced to that point. I started bringing the game to school. A couple of other social outcasts in my class (Rory and Eric) noticed me reading the books at recess and started asking about it. Eventually, they made characters and we started playing at recess. Our recess sessions turned into an after school thing and we started having sleepovers at each other’s houses. We even dived into nascent game hacking, with Rory having an idea to make a Marvel Super Heroes scenario with video game characters, and we spent a fair amount of time giving FASERIP stats to each of the Mega Man bosses, as I recall. The kids at school didn’t get any nicer, but at least I had a couple of friends. And, more importantly, I had something in my life that excited me, something I looked forward to every day. I don’t remember the name of that older kid who taught me Marvel Super Heroes, or even why he was at our apartment in the first place. In fact, I never saw him again. But I wish I could tell him how important that afternoon was for me. He didn’t just kickoff my lifelong passion for tabletop games. He probably saved my life. This originally appeared as a post on The Gauntlet G+ Community. by Jason Cordova
The Gauntlet Slack group is on my mind a lot lately. It began as a way for those of us on the “work” side of the Gauntlet to organize things for Hangouts and podcasts, but it has become something quite different and interesting over the last year or so. It’s more than just a discussion space (though it is also that), it’s a space where a lot of creative collaboration and personal support is happening, and I really love it. I think I’ll just take it by channel… announcements is where we announce things related to the Gauntlet and welcome new Slack members. art club is where the artistically talented among us share and get feedback on the things they’re working on. convention talk is for talking about meatspace conventions. community discussion is for Gauntlet-specific discussion. design feedback is one of the most active and interesting channels. People who are working on game texts post their drafts for feedback, and there is just a lot of discussion about game design. Importantly, it’s feedback and discussion informed by our community values, which means it is helpful, friendly, and does not devolve into a shit show, unlike most public forums. They also organize a regular Office Hours Discord audio chat in this channel. feel club is another very active channel, and one of the most distinctly “Gauntlet.” Basically, folks just talk about whatever is weighing heavily on their hearts. Everyone on that channel is super-supportive. I’m not personally very active in that channel, but I watch it, and I’m always impressed by the basic goodness and supportiveness of our community. gauntlet daddy is where we write dumb sex jokes for Codex’s Gauntlet Daddy feature. gauntlet videos is a working public channel where Rob and YG collect Gauntlet Hangouts videos. giving me life is another busy channel. It’s kind of the opposite of feel club in that it is all about expressing joy and thankfulness for the good things going on in your life. It is a Slack version of that segment of The Gauntlet Podcast. gm support group is one of the newer channels, but I’m really loving what I see so far. We take GMing really seriously in the Gauntlet, and this is a space for folks to get support and feedback for the games they are running. keeper names is where all those cool Keepers of the Gauntlet titles are generated. kickstarters is for discussing and promoting KS projects. need players is a terrific channel. If you have space open up in a Gauntlet Hangouts game, or if you want to organize an ad hoc game, this is the place you go. It’s almost like a tiny Games on Demand, and a terrific benefit of being on our Slack. nintendo switch is where the Switch-hitters among us talk about Nintendo shit. other pods is where we discuss other podcasts. politics is a VERY active channel. Probably not too difficult to figure out why. queer space is for queer Gauntleteers to hang out and chat. random is another active channel. If what you want to discuss doesn’t fit anywhere else, drop it here. rpg chat is the most active channel by far. This is where we discuss roleplaying games. Here are some discussions from just the last few days: the fanboy/bro culture surrounding Burning Wheel and Blades in the Dark; comparing Cypher, Cortex+ and other “tradindal” systems; the future way RPG texts will be presented, such as incorporating Youtube; how Dogs in the Vineyard would be better with In a Wicked Age’s die mechanic; What is “PbtA?”; and much, much more. Most importantly: because we’re the Gauntlet, we are able to have these conversations in a respectful, productive manner. And the above are just the most active/popular channels. There are actually many more where smaller, more specific conversations take place, in addition to numerous private channels where we work on podcasts, Codex, Gauntlet Con, etc. At this point, the Slack channel basically is the Gauntlet. I love G+ and I dabble on Twitter, but the Slack is where the tremendous creative energy of our community resides. It has become a very elemental part of my day; it’s where I collaborate on RPG stuff, it’s where I vent, it’s where I get the positive energy I need to do awesome things in this hobby. And I really can’t emphasize the following enough: it is just so friendly. The Gauntlet already has a reputation in the hobby as being exceedingly kind and friendly, and the Slack is a perfect expression of that. It’s good people who love games coming together to celebrate the hobby and each other. Anyway, the Slack is on my mind. Dreams for everyone who participates there: your positivity, supportiveness, and energy are giving me life every single day. This originally appeared as a Google+ post on January 16, 2018. You can find out Google+ Community here.  a steampunk city starter for Dungeon World by Will Patterson, Keeper of the Child's Dream Archival. The city of grease and gears. Sanctuary of the Mechans, but open to all. It was founded centuries ago by the bard Jixter Reverb, the first to awaken. It stands as a monument to progress, beckoning Mechans as they attain sentience. King Jixter's reign was marked by peace and prosperity until a week ago, when Jixter murdered Archmage Redwell in cold blood before hundreds of witnesses. Jixter refuses to speak, and you have been hired by Archival’s mage guild to uncover the King's motives... Questions: - Growing up on its oil-stained streets, you bore witness to the lie behind Archival's prosperity. What is your most distressing memory? - Rumors of the White are as ubiquitous as they are inconsistent. Why does it want Archival for its own? - (For a magic user) You narrowly escaped capture at the hands of hooded assailants. Aside from a patch branded with a bleeding eye, what did they leave behind? - As you approached Archival by airship, you could feel the heat from the fires burning in the eastern district. What stories did the dockworkers tell of the east? - Over the years, you have lost more coin at The Baker's Daughter than you'd care to admit. What palace intrigues are your fellow regulars gossiping about recently? Whoever answers this question is the Regular for purposes of The Baker’s Daughter custom move. Impressions: - A scrap of newspaper describing the abductions of several prominent human magic users. - Graffiti depicting a bleeding red eye. - Rumors of Mechans going missing and returning home with significant memory issues. - A man's voice, pleading for help down a darkened alley. - Fires in the east, lighting up the night sky. - A constable's carriage, speeding through the streets, heedless of pedestrians. - An oil-slicked river, separating east Archival from the west. - A half-dozen well-equipped corpses, frozen solid. - A beggar ranting about an invasion of imposter Mechans. - The guards at the palace gates seem unconcerned by Redwell’s death. - A bizarre spider-like contraption waddling down the boulevard like the town drunk. Inside you hear two voices arguing loudly. - A shadow cast by a huge creature flying above, too high to identify. - Footprints made of ice that refuse to melt, even in the noonday sun. - In your pockets you find business cards reading: “Johannes Trithemius - translations, solutions, divinations - The Baker’s Daughter Room 3b.” - A glimpse of an unusual, diminutive Mechan who was clearly studying you. It disappears without a trace. - An enormous bronze mechanical bear walking down a boulevard. People move out of its way and you would swear it winks at you as you pass. - Letters of frost reading “Pachua rises!” and “The One Reigns!” - A rotund street musician with an enormous top hat. “Name’s HAT. Catch me tonight at The Baker’s Daughter!” - Three stone-sober dwarves overseeing a construction site crewed by Mechans. - Rumors of a hospital to the east that has been experimenting on Mechans. Patients allegedly return without joy in their gears. - A newspaper with the headline: "Jixter in chains, Babbage takes reins." - A train station where the upper torso of a Mechan behemoth, like a huge, mechanical centaur, emerges from an engine. It looks at you for a moment before returning to the task of loading its cars. Locations: The Baker's Daughter, a tavern frequented by palace officials that hides a dark secret. When you spend some time swapping tales with the regulars at The Baker's Daughter, the Regular rolls +CHA (see Questions above). On a 7+, ask the GM two questions from the list below. On a 7-9, one of the answers may be a lie. - Who is reprogramming Mechans? - Where is the White's lair? - Who is really in control at the Palace? - Where is the secret entrance to King Jixter's study? - Who is Kol? - What caused the fires in the east? On a 6-, the GM may answer however they wish, and your inquiries draw unwelcome attention. Archival’s Mage Guild, reinforced as if preparing itself for war A burnt out hospital in the east, housing the lair of Pachua, the White, deep below. The Palace, loyal to Jixter's treasurer Mordecai Babbage The Silverheart Bridge, the main thoroughfare connecting East and West, blockaded by the Palace Guard Factions: The White’s Thralls: Servants of Pachua, an ancient white dragon. Instinct: to obtain an army. Cult of Dead Steel: Industrialists that miss the days of free Mechan labor. Instinct: to refurbish Mechans into mindless servants. Cult of the Gyre: Madmen in service to a long buried evil. Cultists carry a bleeding eye insignia. Instinct: to transform magic users into powerful fiends. The Palace: Jixter's treasurer, Mordecai Babbage, rules in Jixter's stead. Instinct: to deny the unthinkable. The Mages Guild: The party's employers. The local chapter is led by Lady Dallyance the Bold. Instinct: to protect magic users from abduction and uncover the truth about Jixter.  Is this Kol? Is it Pachua? Someone else? Adversaries: Pachua & Kol Inseparable, intelligent, devious, flying, mounted [Pachua is immune to the party’s feeble attempts] 16 HP (Kol), 1 armor Upon entering the frozen lair beneath the burnt out hospital, you will find Kol sitting upon a throne of ice on a pillar 30 feet in the air. A manacle on Kol’s left hand is chained to a choker around the neck of a beautiful figure, who sits forlornly at the edge of the pillar. Kol will demand that the party stop and return to the surface, else Kol will push the figure off the edge. If the party approaches, Kol will follow through on this promise. The figure will transform into a white dragon during the fall, and Kol will leap onto its back. Any party member who attempts to interrupt the fall will be their first target. Pachua's armored hide is almost impenetrable, but it will withdraw from Archival in grief if its partner falls. Instinct: to capture a party member and withdraw - Pachua's ice breath (b[2d10]+2, area, near, slow, freezing) - Kol leaps from Pachua to perform the Pendulum, a deadly maneuver allowing Kol to strike a target below and then regain their seat on Pachua’s neck (1d10, beneath Pachua, pierce 2) - Javelin (1d6, near, far, pierce 1, ammo 3) - Clutch a foolish PC in Pachua’s claws Kol's Crew Horde, intelligent 6HP, 1 armor Kol's Crew patrols eastern Archival in service to Pachua. Deadly archers stand watch above the lair entrance. Instinct: to rain death from above - Cruel bow (1d6, near, far, pierce 1, debilitating (DM’s choice)) - Cruel blade (1d6, close, messy) - Call for reinforcements Palace Guard Group, fanatical to the Cult of the Gyre 7HP, armor 2 Led by Captain James Jarvis Strong, the guard is currently stationed at the Silverheart Bridge and will rebuff the party’s attempts to travel to the east without Mordecai Babbage’s personal authorization. Corpses carry the bleeding eye badge. Instinct: To kidnap magic users - Swords (1d8+2, close) - Bolos (near, far, immobilizing) - Counterspell - Raise anti-magic field - Put civilians in immediate danger  Reprogramed Mechans
Mimic, obedient to the Cult of Dead Steel 6HP, 3 armor Instinct: To infiltrate the upper echelons of Mechan society - Improvised weaponry (1d10, close, near) - Ambush from a crowd - Imitate former self Our Slack Spotlight series features short interviews with active members of our Slack channel.
Will Patterson: Jennifer, how long have you been part of the Gauntlet, and what brought you in initially? Jennifer Erixon: Gosh, well, I played my first Gauntlet games at the end of December 2016. I played a halfling druid in a dungeon world game that was gmed by Daniel Lugo. It was great, and I got to reject my god for lying to me, which led to Daniel posting something really nice about me and making me feel all warm and cuddly. I don't know exactly how I got into the Gauntlet. I booted up my g+ account maybe two years ago, and started following random people who had made stuff. I lurked for a long while, mostly on the Dungeon World tavern. I was obsessed with DW. Some background: At the time I was living in an agricultural intentional community serving adults with developmental disabilities in eastern Pennsylvania. Sometime in december of 2014 I played warrior rogue mage (WRM) with a guy who was dating one of the dairy farmers, then the next Thanksgiving she ran a WRM game based on the Odyssey. I played Penelope, Odysseus's wife. I had a magic loom which I used to make magic rope to sort of swing the boat away from Charybdis. It was great. I had played some 4e way back in the day, but this reawakened my need for games, and I devoured the One Shot podcast. I lived without internet in my house at the time, so i would download podcasts in the mansion house and then listen to them in my spare time. I read so many rulebooks, spent what little money was in my stipend on pdfs, and eventually joined up with g+. After lurking in the tavern for a bit I learned of stonetop and got into a playtest group. I loved the concept. Ari Black was the gm, Christo Meid was the fox, I was the blessed, and we had a heavy. It was a lot of fun, and I realized how much I loved just being my character, being a character that cared about fictional things. Like, I felt that I truly was this daughter of Danu, and all the while, I was basically hiding in public places that had wifi in the village where I lived and worked. Working the dairy and milking the cows was a lonely profession, and having a social and creative outlet was so necessary to my survival. No one in the village could ever commit to any f2f games because we were all so tired or busy. Stonetop was the beginning. What’s funny is now I am in a playtest group run by Jeremy Strandberg, and playing alongside Christo again, with Jason Lutes and Michael Prescott rounding out the roster. It’s fucking great. So eventually that original Stonetop group began to fall apart, and Christo went to the Gauntlet, (which is probably how I heard of the Gauntlet), but I didn't really hit my stride in the community until the World of Dungeons (WoDu) series Songs of Bellet Osc and then Apocalypse World 2e both run by Jason Cordova. I learned a lot about my playstyle, and it was a crash course in good GMing from the master of all ceremonies, games, and dungeons. Is DW still your favorite game? No, not really. Around the time I got into the Gauntlet I was really getting heavy into some OSR goodness. There is lots of awesome stuff in the OSR community. I have been following Macchiato Monsters for a long time. I love the way it has evolved and I am really looking forward to the final game being released. Into the Odd is another favorite of mine, Maze Rats is lovely, and Ilike a lot of the content put out by Evelyn M and Trey Causey. I find that, ironically, some of the rules light OSR games have fewer mechanics and therefore more narrative freedom. I found that when I tried playing DW with some of my fellow village dwellers, they seemed so crippled by their character sheets. It was unintuitive to them, and unless you’re like me, you don't have the time to sit and read a whole bunch of rules. That's one reason WoDu has become my favorite game for genre stories. It’s easily hackable, being only a page in length. It’s a lot like WRM without all the fiddly bits, but informed by an Apocalypse World sensibility. I have made a retro sci-fi hack of WoDu, and am currently running a f2f game of an Into the Odd/Electric Bastionland hack of WoDu, which is working wonderfully. It’s sounds like you are all in on the hobby. What drew you in originally? Well, so I had always been a sort of fantasy and folklore nut. I remember once when I was in high school I found the 3.5 monster manual or whatever it was called back then, but it was full of numbers and not enough illustrations. I thought it was a folklore book about the history of different monsters, but it wasn't. At the time I was into folklore and mythology hardcore. I mean I still am, I still dream of owning a library just filled with folklore and being able to recite my favorite fairy tales by heart like a proper crone. Fantasy was sort of a big deal when I was younger. Harry Potter was my whole childhood. I saw the first movie for my 11th birthday. LOTR also came out that year and I got obsessed. The Eragon books also came out around that time, and I loved the His Dark Materials series and Abarat. I remember one time when I was maybe ten dragging my mom into a store with a wizard on it or some such but it was wiccan and that was boring. My family also went to ren fests all the time. Anyway, in high school I got into video games like no one's business. Final Fantasy and Elder Scrolls in particular, which are both basically DnD clones with graphix, and also Fable. That fantasy vein ran in my mind, but I had still not really heard of DnD. In college, that changed. I fell in with a group of arty nerdy folks and we did everything. We watched anime, we played video games, and some of us made an in character craigslist ad to play in DnD 4e. We played a few sessions of Keep on the Shadowfell. It was fun, and new and exciting, but man combat lasted forever. My favorite moment was when my halfling warlock, half mad from the star pact, entered a room full of skeletons, killed them all in one swift move, and came out with a witty comeback for the rest of the party. Then we did a few sessions of a film noir/pulp adventure in d20 modern, and a Zelda pbp, a 4e game that went terribly in Iowa City and pissed people off due to different expectations, but it sort of petered out for me. I was more interested in getting myself involved in the local poetry, art, and political scenes to get too involved with nerdiness outside of a few board games or card games. It wasn’t until 2014 that I hooked myself with that WRM game I talked about earlier. You’ve had a fairly broad background in the hobby, which brings me to one of my favorite questions. Imagine your perfect game night. What game are you playing, and are you the GM or a PC? Aw jeeze, how cruel of you! This question is completely unfair! I suppose I really have no idea, right? The game rules are not what is important to me. I think my perfect game night would be a night full of emotions. I want to feel sad, happy, scared, and excited. I want to laugh and cry. I want to feel something and tell a good story. I want to come away affected by the game I have played. Whether I am the GM or player, it doesn't matter. I have never had that experience as a GM yet, but I feel like it’s where I want to be, to be able to have that experience and facilitate that experience for my players. That is beautiful Jennifer. I we get a chance to play at the same table in the future. Thank you for sharing some time with us. |
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