Session Title
Masks: Gauntlet Quarterly S1

Date
1/2/2019

System
Masks: A New Generation

GM
Lowell Francis

Players
Steven desJardins, Chris Newton, Steven Watkins,

Session Recap
This was primarily a character creation session. The players settled on a mid-tone game set in Gauntlet City. We established three characters:

Sara Sparks aka Molly Kirby. She’s a smart and athletic third generation superhero. Sparks follows in the footsteps of her grandfather, Flag Waver, who is currently in an induced coma. Her father, once heir to the mantle, took the name Night Terror and is in prison for his vigilante extremism. Sara was raised and trained by her grandfather and uncle. (Legacy)

Gabriel is a lifeform sent by forces further up the timestream. Intended as a probe, Gabriel awoke a couple of millennia late during an alien invasion. Gabriel changes form, appearance, and gender, but always seems a little off. They communicate with a “caretaker” who may be in contact with their hypertime creators. (Newborn)

Overclock found a crashed time observation post that had been landed to assist Tachytron in its role as a slow creeping Empyreonix infection from a dark technopocalypse future/alternate dimension. The craft bonded with him in its malfunctioning state, but Will was infected by the damaged Empyreonix nanocode. (Doomed)

All three characters attend a Gauntlet City Anchor school which has provisions for unusual lifeforms (hence Gabriel’s presence there). The three characters have a mixed knowledge of each other’s secret IDs, with Overclock and Sara attending in their civilian identities. As they ate lunch in the cafeteria, mysterious flames appeared around people—burning the area but not the students. 

The team cleared the cafeteria and attempted to extinguish the flames. However this seemed to focus the inferno, which shifted and became a portal out of which a figure emerged. The team confronted him in the courtyard, where they discovered he was Asphyxia, a mercenary villain hired by the Empyreonix to capture Overclock. The team fought, but the villain used his powers to destroy the oxygen in the area, threatening students at the school.

Overclock confronted Asphyxia and landed a solid blow, but the villain took him out. Gabriel and Sara coordinated and tried to remove the villain’s armored suit, only to find it was a containment vessel and opening it sent things haywire. They eventually managed to reseal him and take him out. Overclock took off, embarrassed at his relative inability during the fight.

Dr. Nicholas Alset, leader of an AEON research division, arrived and put pressure on Sparks, but she resisted. The team took off in separate directions and we saw a little of their home life.

Highlight
Overclock's desperation at the end of the fight as he realized he'd endangered everyone and been (as he saw it) useless in the conflict.

Moment of Insight
Lot of time travel elements.

Actual Play

by Fraser Simons, Keeper of the Neon Veil

​Date Played
12/13/2018

System
Fire Ships At Midnight

Facilitator
Haley G

Players
Fraser S, Sarah J

Session Recap
Fire Ships At Midnight is a storygame that has 3 players take on the roles of The Duke of Medina Sidonia, Cardinal Ribera, and Captain Salazar. It captures a moment of history I was not even remotely aware of: the legendary disaster of the Spanish Armada as they attempted to invade the English in 1588.

We don't play to affect the outcome of the disaster, though. We play to find out which of the three characters can save their reputations, each vying for their own course of action using the mechanics of the game. You wager dice in an attempt to outbid the others. But your failures and successes are linked, ultimately. And when you play to drive the fiction toward your ideal outcome, you also find yourself slipping into your character; "fighting" with the people you realize you're in bed with, as you are the only people who will be judged...and rewarded.

In the first scene, I found myself advocating for a course of action that was actually the second scene's most positive outcome for my character, the Captain. The plan I quickly thought up when attempting to embody my character was my character's primary goal—how perfect is that?!

As we continued, I found that this was similar for everyone. The desired outcomes also goalpost what your character would do and want, making it so easy to roleplay their possible mode of thinking, maneuvering to the end game.

Even when you start out advocating for the lives of your men and the safest, sanest, course of action, you think. You end up on the precipice, deciding if you want to be crowned in glory (all the while knowing you're all responsible for a horrendous outcome for the lives of those you are, perhaps, most responsible for as the Captain) or be disgraced.

That's when you are really playing to find out; when you're realizing your immense, titanic privilege in a situation with lives in the balance; when you're choosing the best outcome for yourself.

And remember: that is what the game says it's about. It warned you the whole time.

Highlight
To foreshadow my character's own decision, midway through play the Duke offered to help me when we returned. Promises writhed in ostentatious firelight splaying across his gilded quarters. On a player level, I lost and missed my favored outcome, as did the Cardinal, who lost so direly they were out of the game. But while the Cardinal held fast despite this loss, I gave one of my losing dice to the Duke, bending to his will.

In the end, we were crowned as heroes and the Cardinal fell to dysentery in the hull of the ship. He prayed and prayed and cursed us as he died. His grandson, the bishop, looked so much like the Cardinal as we held our final conference. Talking of executing deserters or disbanding the fleet, trusting the captains to sail for Spain and king and country. All the while the words of the bishop, like the shadows on the wall when we spoke last to the Cardinal, fell on deaf ears. In the end, even if you're god fearing, you want the king on your side; not god.

Moment of Insight
No matter what outcome you vie for it is all false valor and bluster. If it happens to align for the best outcome for the army and best sailors belonging to Spain, well, that is particularly lucky for them.

Fireships at Midnight is available in Codex - Flame, which you can pick up for FREE right here. 

by Lowell Francis

​Campaign/Session Title
Hearts of Wulin: Book Three: Session 1

Content Advisory
Harm to arachnids

Date Played
12/2/2018

System
Hearts of Wulin

GM
Lowell Francis

Players
Patrick Knowles, Sherri Stewart, Rich Rogers, and David Morrison

Session Recap
For Gauntlet Quarterly I've been running campaigns across three month spans. I've tried a couple of approaches. For Hearts of Wulin, we have a single campaign split into three "books". Each month tells a complete story, though characters and themes return throughout.

In the first two books we established the world and eventually dug into the mystery of the Orphans of Yun. The Yun, a wulin clan, had been mysteriously destroyed. At the end of Book One, we learned that this destruction had come from jealousy, as the Yun had developed a deadly new art and had begun to use it against their rivals. At the end of Book Two we learned that those who had destroyed the Yun still sought their secrets. More importantly, it turned out that two of the PCs, Jade Saber Lan and Nightsky Ming, had been adopted and raised by enemies of the Yun. Both broke away from their heritage at the end of the arc.

This session involved re-framing these two returning characters. Both opted to keep their PCs as they were, but reworked their bonds and entanglements. The character Zheng Wen had appeared a couple of times earlier in the series, and he now returned as a regular for the final arc. Finally we established a new PC, Passing Cloud, a recently discovered survivor from the Yun Clan.

The session began with Zheng bringing news to Nightsky of her beloved, Sedate Rao, and his impending marriage. In the year since the events of Book Two, Nightsky had trained and hidden herself in a ruined temple. She said that Sedate Rao's marriage meant nothing to her, despite his bride being a villainess. But Zheng felt she lied.

At the same time Shardsabre Lan went to see Passing Cloud. Lan had once been called Jade Sabre Lan, but at the end of Book Two, he'd broken his ornate weapon to demonstrate his independence. In the year between books, he'd forged a new blade and taken this new name. His friend Passing Sky, though suspicious of Lan due to the machinations of Sky's hidden twin brother, greeted Lan warmly. Lan, drawn to Passing Cloud but unable to speak of it, asked the student-warrior to accompany him to a potential lost Yun Shrine. Cloud agreed and left short note behind for his caretaker, Auntie Silver.

In the temple, as Zheng and Nightsky drank tea, a low warning wail cut through the air. Nightsky had bound ghosts which now alerted her to an impending attack. The pair doused the lights and turned the ambush back on their attackers. Zheng handily cut through the mob of henchpersons while Nightsky faced Dancing Spider. In the melee Dancing Spider revealed that there were two additional targets: Lan and also Nine Blossoms, Zheng's beloved from the Liquid Metal Delegates. Nightsky killed Dancing Spider by driving her blade through the villainess' hands and poisoning her with her own spider venom.

At the same time, Lan and Cloud returned from their fruitless exploration. On a hillside path, they found themselves ambushed by a gang of thugs and the assassin Dancing Scorpion. Cloud demanded to know if Lan was part of this attack, an accusation which stung him deeply. Lan disarmed Dancing Scorpion, knocking aside her living weapons and sending her tumbling down the hill. She took off. Cloud managed to dispatch the henchmen, though not without effort.

After some further travels all four heroes met up. Zheng and Nightsky discovered that Nine Blossoms, the other target, had left the city secretly, heading out to a temple in the hinterlands. The four gathered themselves together and set off to rescue her.

Highlight
Shardsabre Lan's expression when he realized the assassin fought with thrown living scorpions.

Moment of Insight
This trilogy approach has been fairly successful. But breaking the longer campaign up into back-to-back chunks, we have continuity while allowing new players to come in and help set the story going forward. It's something I want to examine closely once we're done with the whole campaign.

Actual Play

Campaign/Session Title
Star Wars Saturday: Impulse Drive (1 of 3)

Content Advisory
Discussion of slavery, violence

Date Played
12/1/2018

System
Impulse Drive

GM
Rich Rogers

Players
Bethany, David, and Sabine

Session Recap
The crew of the Nerf Herder, a small tramp freighter, fly into the spaceport on Rutan in hopes of picking up a contract, but they become embroiled in a decades-old conflict between the Rutani and their neighbors on the planet's moon, Senali.

Quake, the old Clone Trooper, runs into a Twi'Lek he once freed during a mission on this planet, and the two have a brief but pleasant reunion. Val the Scoundrel has a reunion of her own, it's less pleasant. Buza the secret Jedi warns a Bounty Hunter off Val's trail and steals her idents, but that only leads to trouble back on the ship later when the Trandoshan Bounty Hunter comes looking for her poodoo.

Highlight
After a failed roll to scope out a gambling den, Val the Scoundrel is pulled into a gun smuggling job by her old boss.

Moment of Insight
As the Space Master (the GM in Impulse Drive), I'd prepped the job they would start off with and read about Rutan on Wookieepedia. The players took over the story with their amazing ideas and I rolled with them. I also borrowed ideas liberally from the comic book series Saga, because I steal from the best. The dice gave us lots of little surprises along the way.

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Actual Play

by Fraser Simons, Keeper of the Neon Veil

​Date Played
11/14/2018
 
System
Girl Underground
 
GM
Lauren McManamon
 
Players
Fraser Simons, Ary Ramsey, Michael X. Heiligenstein
 
Session Recap
Falling into a tub smelling of cigarettes and gin only to be transported to a magical land would teach anyone something, right? Girl Underground puts you in the shoes of the companions of a young girl who enters just such a place. But it also has the players embody companions that act as different lenses to interrogate various themes in line with the genre. Fiction like Alice In Wonderland, Wizard of Oz, Labyrinth, and Spirited Away.
 
Knowing little of the genre, I wasn't sure what to quite expect other than the knowledge that it attempts a lens often not seen in RPGs; especially because it aims to empower the main character as the players all take time playing with agency. As an alternate lens to the girl the companions help reinforce these goals. Pyrion, the last of his regal kind as a phoenix, was my own character and companion to Penny, the girl. My moves enabled me to contribute to the fiction with tales of the past, to help Penny be courageous, and try to circumvent obstacles despite my inability to fly—all things which enabled me to flesh out Pyrion over two sessions of the playtest. Why was he the last of his kind? Why couldn't he fly anymore?
 
The girl is the only one able to deal with obstacles and address challenges. She has manners she is beholden to but can be subverted, which yield new beliefs forged from these experiences and are the direct result of her agency. When a witch in a shack tells you what to do, "Young ladies must never complain about their duties." is subverted and becomes "Adults always say one thing but mean another." When you're held captive in a fantastic hall, and prince charming and a man in a peacock costume give you tea that tastes like your wildest dreams or try to regale you with never-ending tales (literally) of their own bravery, "Young ladies never make demands" changes to "I matter as much as anyone" when you tell them to stuff it and take off. There is just no time for tea. Even if it tastes like everything good in your life and you think about that tea every second of every day...Anyway~~
 
Throughout play, the girl and her companions encounter embodiments of the things young girls and women face in their daily lives. Societal strictures and gender performance, and a lot of things I often don't think about as a white male with a lot of privilege. All people and creatures and jerk tooth fairies speak to you, well, like a 12 year old girl. They tell you what to do and what to think. Sometimes subtly, sometimes not. And conflicts, at least in our playtest, never resulted in physical altercations. This is something I love in RPG design in general, but in this game it is particularly satisfying because subverting expectations is what the game is about.
 
Penny helped her companions as much as they helped her. The sheer act of discovering Pyrion was help. He was chained to the ground by villagers who feared his kin, though they were all long dead. The Ogre, Gungun, though physically powerful, was a gentle soul that was being bullied when discovered and later had to face body shame in order to get us out of multiple disastrous situations—all while being the most perceptive one of us all. Skipper, the Runaway, only free so long as she was lost, led the way in compassion despite a lot of exuberant bravado. Skipper found the sea that led to the Crystal Palace and the Queen of Nothing—as Gungun pointed out to her while we tried to evade a magical pact at the bottom of an ocean that could surely drown us at any moment, since it only parted because the Queen willed it.
 
I was sure that this final boss, this unjust ruler, would be maybe the only physical conflict we would have. But as we talked to the would-be-ruler it was clear that she was as much a girl as us. She, too, had wandered in the halls with the prince and the peacock and was rejected. I'm sure we would have made some slight and be similarly ejected. But Skipper took Penny's hand and ran, even taking with us the prince whose helmet revealed not a Prince Charming, but a young boy of 15, no more mature than any of us. His clothes fit for a man but the only thing the boy could think to do was tell other people stories so that he would feel good about himself. And still we saved him from a then-unknown fate but would have been the same as the queen of the ocean—who walked right into the water to be alone forever.
 
Highlight
When Gungun told the queen that she didn't rule anything, and that the sea didn't care about her. He invited her to his home. Then it dawned on Pyrion that his kin surely died at her hand; their obsidian bones lying in this oceans floor for doing battle with a young, lonely queen. He saw his kin attacking something they didn't understand. Their bodies unable to burst into flame because they were wet with the salty sea that killed them and unable to be reborn like phoenixes do. He decided he wouldn't find any real sense of justice for the loss he suffered. He wasn't going to try and hurt and kill something sad and possibly dead, and who was a young girl who maybe didn't understand much of what she was doing. So he forgave her. Penny went home and he and his companions carried his kin's bones to be buried. And when the queen or the witch of the sea walked out from the ocean she crumbled into sand anyway.
 
Moment of Insight
Girl Underground can't help but express its themes in poignant ways, a byproduct of the design. I love that most moves assume some degree of success, underpinning agency. The fiction, because of the subject matter it's exploring, can then be "as hard as the MC likes." I think it is a clever subversion of the structure of Powered by the Apocalypse games. The companions all have unique and interesting lenses through which to interact with the Girl herself. I like how fast and evocative character creation is for the Girl, as well as the companions (we were the first gangster bootlegger impoverished family). The companions roll with one of the Girl's stats, keeping cognitive load light. The story was fantastic, all as a result from the move outcomes. Especially when posing questions that need answering in service to your companions, and the game's themes, in order to also succeed. Can't wait to follow the progress of the design, it was a great experience!

You can learn more about Girl Underground at https://girlunderground.org.

Date Played
11/8/2018

System
For the Queen

GM
Tomes

Players
Agatha, Leandro, Vee, Hayley

Session Recap
A perilous journey to a broker a marriage for the young queen. A journey with a farm boy with an oracle's bowl, two siblings—assassins in their ways, the queen's mother who still wields power through words, and a captive ambassador of the land to which we travel.

Highlight
Once by Agatha, once by Vee, where they needed to stop and meta-discuss the situation because there was just so much intrigue.

Moment of Insight
The game rules estimated a run time of 30 minutes. I expected 2 hours. We played for over 3 hours. This was the closest I've seen the base game behave as a "standard" RPG in terms of length, role playing, and scene progression.

Actual Play

This is the first in our new series of Gauntlet session reports, short and standardized reports of some of the hundreds of games that we are playing through Gauntlet Hangouts.

Campaign/Session Title
Tumbling / This Is the Story of Evan and Illina

Date
11/5/2018

System
Tumbling (third playtest)

GM
Sid Icarus

Players
Sid Icarus, Barry Cook

Session Recap
After a bunch of friendly interactions with them on Twitter, Sid invited me to playtest Tumbling - a laundry-based game of meet-cutes. Through character creation we learned that my character, Evan, was still hanging onto his time in college, and tailors his own clothes to fit him perfectly. We learned that whether Sid's character Illina is working in cafes, or possibly getting fired from working in the hospitality business, she uses up every moment in a day without wasting a one (except maybe on laundry). The two had a few awkwardly sweet encounters after a pretty rough start before sharing a kiss that surprised them both.

Highlight
At about 56 minutes into the recording, we enter Tumbling's epilogue scene where our cards let us use specific prompts like "I've moved too fast. Show me if you slow me down." before hitting our ending, which was very fortunately, "I have shown you I want you. Show me if you accept me."

Moment of Insight
The tightly-focused lens through which we saw our characters in this game really helped me see each of them as real people.

Actual Play