At the Gauntlet, we spend countless hours advocating for roleplaying games, teaching people how to play roleplaying games, sharing that deep and abiding love we have for roleplaying games with anyone who will listen. The amount of time we spend on podcasts, putting together Codex, organizing game sessions, and all the rest, is staggering.
We get a lot of personal satisfaction from doing those things, especially when it comes to playing games, but the vast majority of the benefits–and 100% of the monetary benefits–are collected by the game designers and creatives of the hobby.
Are we a big deal like One-Shot? No. Do we have the audience of Friends at the Table? No. But the benefits, such as they are, flow directly to the game design community (in particular, the indie game design community).
I must insist the game design community start having the Gauntlet’s back. I rarely ask anything of the game design community, and I never use our platform for anything other than to boost indie game designers, but I must insist people start having our back. I have spent years battling bullshit territorialism and tribalism in this hobby and it is exhausting. If you’re a game designer who has ever had a positive association with the Gauntlet and you see or hear people trying to fuck us over, you need to say something. If we boost your game on one of our podcasts, you need to boost our podcast. If we played your game on YouTube, you need to tell people about that video.
I’m sick of this one-way street. The Gauntlet is part of the indie side of the hobby. I insist we start being treated like it.
(I’m turning off comments and re-shares, because I’m mostly venting here, and I don’t have the energy or bandwidth to manage a thread right now. If anyone wants to chat with me privately, you know where to find me).