Thanks to The Gauntlet’s community, I now know all my playbooks work and are fun.

Thanks to The Gauntlet’s community, I now know all my playbooks work and are fun.

Thanks to The Gauntlet’s community, I now know all my playbooks work and are fun. And I have a ton of confidence about this game’s future.

Thanks Gauntleteers!

Originally shared by Robert Bohl

Everyone’s a Hardholder

I just finished a session of Demihumans at the first Gauntlet NYC minicon (an extension of the fandom for the RPG podcast, The Gauntlet). After a lovely morning session of Meguey Baker’s Psi*Run, I wound up getting three players for my character and world creation and play session, Rob Abrazado, Michael, and Dylan Ross.

Rob played Vinculus the Gnome, Michael played Mosi the Halfling, and Dylan played Ragnar the Orc. They’re living in the capital of a human nation called Varkesh, in its capital city (also called Varkesh). This is a city that, during the eons of genocidal war between the orcs and humans, passed ownership and control of it back and forth between them. Ultimately, both sides arrived at a power-sharing agreement, splitting the city in half between Varkesh and its orcish name, “Vet Su’ok.” Over time, Vet Su’ok got smaller and smaller, until it’s now a ghetto of 200-300 demihumans (mostly halflings and orcs) in a tiny, narrow enclave with the same name.

Varkesh is nominally an aristocracy, but it’s so old and developed that the bureaucracy has great sway both over who wins succession, and what they’re capable of achieving while crowned. Its laws and rules are Byzantine and stringently-adhered-to. This has bled into Vet Su’ok, which also has a lot of laws and rules, and is ruled by an oligarchical council of important people, families, and organizations.

Anyway, in the characters’ Gnosis questions, we learned that Mosi the Halfling’s cousin (Reed) and Ragnar the Orc got into a scuffle with Garrald Andson, a human “adventurer” and aristocrat. He’d been stealing magical baubles from the shops, and they stopped him, kicked his ass, and stole what he’d been stealing for themselves.

Play began with Ragnar’s sister Tarkva coming to him while he did constabulary duty on horseback, to let him know Garrald was back, with a host of retainers and hirelings in tow. He’d been accused of assault and attempted murder against Reed the Halflng, Mosi’s cousin. Reed was missing and Garrald and his people had been picked up by the constables and were sitting in stocks with a growing crowd around them. Tarkva delivered a jury summons, calling on Ragnar and two others to investigate the crime and pass judgment. As he opened the summons, he (failing a persevere under duress roll) feels the weight of its magic fall on him. He’ll find no rest until he discharges his duty as a juror.

Around the same time, Vinculus the Gnome was puttering around his office when Ainway (an elvish child who was apprenticing to learn strange magic from the gnome) delivered the jury summons. He also failed his roll, and decided to head down to the stocks with his apprentice in tow.

For her part, Mosi is informed by Ash, her brother and chief rival to take over the family when the current leader passes control off. He tells her the same story about Reed getting assaulted and maybe killed, and she heads to the militia’s stables, where the humans were being held.

Garrald is a beautiful, rich, and famous man who has brought an adventuring party with him to Vet Su’ok (a dimwitted giant of a man, a woman who only whispered and was encased in black leather, etc.) and they’re all in the stocks, too. The citizens of the enclave are loving it, throwing things at them and jeering. The story about the attempted murder has spread and people are mad.

For a while, Mosi is able to dodge the constable that’s trying to deliver her the jury summons, until Ragnar takes it from her and gives it to Mosi, who decides to stop dodging the inevitable. When she opens the summons though, she gets a partial success at persevering through duress, and learns that she may, one time, ignore her duties and take an act jurors are not permitted.

Meanwhile, the crowd wants blood, and Garrald is trying to antagonize his captors into brutalizing him or letting him go so he can kill them. He’s being sneering and racist when people try to talk to him, so Ragnar bites off the tip of his nose and scares him into more respect, and into stopping trying to get free. They interrogate the more-pliant guy and his servants. His story winds up being that he was coming into the enclave to buy a potion (his friends teasingly said it was to fix his limp dick), and got assaulted in an alley by Reed and Ash.

The Company/jury decides they need to find out what Ash’s story is and where Reed is. They get Ash to bring them to the crime scene, and it’s quickly clear that he’s lying to them and making up details of his story on the fly. Their investigations on what details Ash can come up with don’t fit his story. They haul him back toward Garrald to question him more and make his accuser face him. On the way, just before they arrive, Ash gives Ragnar, who’s dragging him, a vicious, poisoned cut to the leg, then the gut. He twists away and disappears into the alleyways.

They then interrogate Gerrald again. His wound is identical to the wounds Ash gave Ragnar, and his story’s details hold together better than Ash’s. The Company starts trying to figure out how to let the falsely-imprisoned human nobleman free without causing a riot or letting him come back at them after this, even angrier. They get him to agree to drop everything if they get the guys who framed them. Garrald agrees, but no one believes it, and the crowd is furious that it looks like the jury is trying to reason with the criminal.

So they go out looking for the halflings, use the enclave’s gold from the start of session move to pay a reward for information on them, and find them trying to escape via a gnomish dirigible that’s attached to a leaning building, keeping it from collapsing. Vinculus casts an illusion of Ragnar, up on the dirigible, waiting for them, which chases them down and out the front door into the waiting Company’s arms. The halflings are brought to justice, and Garrald and his people are released under cover of night.

It’s only a one shot, so that’s where it ends, but we had a ton of lovely dangling threads. Garrald’s revenge and the backlash from Vet Su’ok’s citizens over freeing a terrible, violent man.

This game went great. I’m not sure why I’m surprised that a light hack of Apocalypse World 2E was so smooth and easy, but I am.

The key exciting revelation for me was learning that this is a game where everyone is the Hardholder. Mosi was trying to reason with her family, who could only see as far as revenge and rage when it hit me. Not only are the Hardholder’s two moves broken out and available to everyone, but everyone cares about keeping the enclave alive and not spinning out of control. Maybe I think talking is the way to get there, and you think biting off someone’s nose is, but neither of us is a Battlebabe-like agent of directionless chaos.

I’m so happy this game is humming.

14 thoughts on “Thanks to The Gauntlet’s community, I now know all my playbooks work and are fun.”

  1. awesome! I love that you explored the ugly side of the adventuring party from the perspective of the folks who don’t write the history or compose the tales.

    what sort of tools do you have in place for establishing the starting situation? “Gnosis questions” caught my attention, could you talk a little about that?

  2. awesome! I love that you explored the ugly side of the adventuring party from the perspective of the folks who don’t write the history or compose the tales.

    what sort of tools do you have in place for establishing the starting situation? “Gnosis questions” caught my attention, could you talk a little about that?

  3. You have a list of 5 Gnosis questions per playbook, much like the Hx questions in AW (the rules work the same way). One is required, the rest are optional. The ones in play here:

    Vinculus the Gnome

    Choose one of the Company. Say, “We created something together but we destroyed it. Why? Do we both remember it?” If you do, write Gnosis+3 for her. If you don’t, write Gnosis+1; some insight remains despite whatever was lost.

    Choose a member of the Company. Say, “You were unhappy about something I made. Why? Did I respond appropriately?” If you did, write Gnosis+2 for him. If not, write Gnosis-1.

    Mosi the Halfling

    Choose a member of the Company. Say, “My child, Aspen, looks up to you. Why? Do I approve?” If you do, write Gnosis+3 for him. If you don’t, write Gnosis+2.

    Choose one of the Company. Say, “My cousin, Reed, got into serious trouble with you. What’d you do together, or what was done to you? Did I approve of how you handled yourself?” If you did, write Gnosis+2 for her. If you didn’t, write Gnosis-1 for her.

    Ragnar the Orc

    Required: Choose one of the Company. Say, “My clan slaughtered your kin and sacked their homes. Have I told you?” If you have, write Gnosis+2 for her, if not, write Gnosis=0.

    Choose a member of the Company. Say, “My clan causes trouble for you or those you care about. Have you had the courage to tell me?” Write Gnosis+3 if he has, or Gnosis-2 if not.

    The first one is the required one in each pair.

    Thanks for your interest, Matthew Doughty!

  4. You have a list of 5 Gnosis questions per playbook, much like the Hx questions in AW (the rules work the same way). One is required, the rest are optional. The ones in play here:

    Vinculus the Gnome

    Choose one of the Company. Say, “We created something together but we destroyed it. Why? Do we both remember it?” If you do, write Gnosis+3 for her. If you don’t, write Gnosis+1; some insight remains despite whatever was lost.

    Choose a member of the Company. Say, “You were unhappy about something I made. Why? Did I respond appropriately?” If you did, write Gnosis+2 for him. If not, write Gnosis-1.

    Mosi the Halfling

    Choose a member of the Company. Say, “My child, Aspen, looks up to you. Why? Do I approve?” If you do, write Gnosis+3 for him. If you don’t, write Gnosis+2.

    Choose one of the Company. Say, “My cousin, Reed, got into serious trouble with you. What’d you do together, or what was done to you? Did I approve of how you handled yourself?” If you did, write Gnosis+2 for her. If you didn’t, write Gnosis-1 for her.

    Ragnar the Orc

    Required: Choose one of the Company. Say, “My clan slaughtered your kin and sacked their homes. Have I told you?” If you have, write Gnosis+2 for her, if not, write Gnosis=0.

    Choose a member of the Company. Say, “My clan causes trouble for you or those you care about. Have you had the courage to tell me?” Write Gnosis+3 if he has, or Gnosis-2 if not.

    The first one is the required one in each pair.

    Thanks for your interest, Matthew Doughty!

  5. love it! I like how you refined and focused a lot of the questions to inject a little more tone, setting and situation into the process, I think it’s a great idea. I wish more games would push a little harder on those questions to reinforce what they’re about.

    some of the required questions have pretty heavy implications although I imagine that’s probably intentional after hearing you talk about this game on backstory haha.

    still, I think I might enjoy having a broader required question that hits a little more on themes or setting, and then having the optional questions act as focused prompts that imply specific character details.

    just a personal preference thing though, I’m power-hungry when it comes to doing setup for a game 😈

    very excited to keep up with this, it looks like my kind of game!

  6. love it! I like how you refined and focused a lot of the questions to inject a little more tone, setting and situation into the process, I think it’s a great idea. I wish more games would push a little harder on those questions to reinforce what they’re about.

    some of the required questions have pretty heavy implications although I imagine that’s probably intentional after hearing you talk about this game on backstory haha.

    still, I think I might enjoy having a broader required question that hits a little more on themes or setting, and then having the optional questions act as focused prompts that imply specific character details.

    just a personal preference thing though, I’m power-hungry when it comes to doing setup for a game 😈

    very excited to keep up with this, it looks like my kind of game!

  7. Well, yeah, I definitely want to push certain things. Things that sometimes aren’t dealt with in games.

    People are gonna be so mad that the Elf is canonically polyamorous, but they’re gonna hate that every Dwarf has a husband.

    (Not everyone, but some people.)

  8. Well, yeah, I definitely want to push certain things. Things that sometimes aren’t dealt with in games.

    People are gonna be so mad that the Elf is canonically polyamorous, but they’re gonna hate that every Dwarf has a husband.

    (Not everyone, but some people.)

  9. I was thinking less about the ideas behind them and more about strict fictional implications like “your character has a child”. But I think it’s a nitpick, when people play a second time they can write a new one if they want! they establish meaningful, deep ties and that’s really the secret sauce when it comes to character creation.

    P.S. polyamorous elves is now my eternal headcanon

  10. I was thinking less about the ideas behind them and more about strict fictional implications like “your character has a child”. But I think it’s a nitpick, when people play a second time they can write a new one if they want! they establish meaningful, deep ties and that’s really the secret sauce when it comes to character creation.

    P.S. polyamorous elves is now my eternal headcanon

  11. Yeah, parenthood and marriage are some of those things I want to force. I want to avoid orphan pcs for one thing, but also, I just want to push it. But as you say, people can write their own or just ignore the word “required” if they want.

  12. Yeah, parenthood and marriage are some of those things I want to force. I want to avoid orphan pcs for one thing, but also, I just want to push it. But as you say, people can write their own or just ignore the word “required” if they want.

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