The Gauntlet: Our Community – Page 145 – The Gauntlet G+ Archives

Are Table Top RPGs Art?

I would say yes. I ask a few questions in order to qualify parts of that statement.

First, where in the timeline of gaming does it fall? (This assumes a decent amount of history, which there is.)

Second, what is the context of the game? (This assumes we can understand things about the game like setting, theme, objectives and systems, which we can)

and Thirdly, how does it relate to our human experience? (does it make us ask questions about the world around us? or relate human emotion, experience, issues of self identity? or allow us to use our mental capacity in creative ways through interpretation, analysis, etc.)

Taking all of that into consideration, I say “Yes!” TTRPGs are definitely an artform, some are my flavor and others are not.

Inspired somewhat by Malandros, I’ve been wondering about the following: do you prefer a game text that is…

Inspired somewhat by Malandros, I’ve been wondering about the following: do you prefer a game text that is utilitarian in nature, which is to say it gives you all the tools you need to get the game to the table quickly; or one that invites you to stay awhile and really ponder the author’s vision?

An example of the former would be 44: A Game of Automatic Fear. That text gets right to the fucking point, making it quick and easy to get to the table.

An example of the latter would be Paul Czege’s The Clay That Woke, a game whose rule chapters are interspersed with chapters from a novella, none of which have titles in English. It’s an inspiring (and inspired) text, but it’s not the easiest game to play on a whim.

Thoughts?

https://www.purecharity.com/rocky-perez?aff=7rqza

Just wanted to ask you to consider helping out this organization. It’s a small group of dedicated people who help hearing and speech impaired children have normal lives. Via Colori is the street painting event they put on each year, here in Houston, to raise funds, and I’ve been a participating artist for 9 of the 10 years they’ve been doing it. Help make it possible for someone’s kid to have a chance at a normal life. Thanks – peace.

This is a KS project I’ve had my eyes on for a few weeks.

This is a KS project I’ve had my eyes on for a few weeks. I decided to kick in a little for the PDF this morning. The designer shared a copy of the beta with me awhile back. At the time, I was a little surprised by how much of the book was taken-up by photographs and artwork. The efficiency-obsessed play organizer in me said ‘Just give me the fucking rules, man! I don’t have time to wade through all of this!’ But I’ve come around. The thing is, this is a really rich, historical setting, and probably one most people aren’t going to be too familiar with. As I flipped through the art, not too concerned with the text at that point, I found myself getting really caught up in it. I started to wonder about the stories of the people depicted therein. And then it occurred to me: ‘Wait, that’s what this game is trying to do! I should go look at the text.’ So I doubled back to the text and, so far, I like what I see. And now I want to either a) play this game or b) watch Black Orpheus again.

The game uses a modified version of DramaSystem, which is what powers Hillfolk. I have yet to try that system out, but this game seems like as good a place to start as any. The pledge levels are very reasonable. If any of this sounds interesting, you should check it out. There are only 8 days left in the campaign.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1690011586/malandros-tales-from-the-streets-of-old-rio

Tonight’s session of Lamentations was completely fucked and disgusting.

Tonight’s session of Lamentations was completely fucked and disgusting. It was the most Lamentations-y session yet, in fact. Really fun, but I think I need a shower. :-/

In Honor of Jason Cordova ‘s love of Skeezy Santa and Gregory Davis-Owen ‘s love of secret agendas

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dnyLiWw1lM4

Hey Everyone. I’m cross-posting this to the Gauntlet Hangouts page, just for maximum coverage.

I’ll be unavailable from January 2nd – January 10th. That means I need people to run some one-shots on Gauntlet Hangouts for the days I would normally be responsible for.

Here are the specific events/dates:

-Saturday Morning Cartoons for January 2nd

-Someone needs to take my co-host spot for the podcast recording on January 4th (Daniel Lewis and Richard Rogers can sort this one out, but I wanted to put it out there in case someone had an awesome idea for the show that week and wanted to get in touch with them privately).

-TGI Thursday One-Shot on January 7th.

-Saturday Morning Cartoons on January 9th.

Whoever takes up arms for Saturday Morning Cartoons could run a two-session thing on the 2nd and the 9th, or we can do two one-shots.

Hey Gauntlet.

Hey Gauntlet. If you were interested in checking out Worlds Without Master after listening to our podcast with Epidiah Ravachol, you can get 25% off back issues in November with the code WoShoStoReMo. Follow the link!

http://www.worldswithoutmaster.com

MAULPOCALYPSE

MAULPOCALYPSE

In the before times, a “shopping maul” called Rolling Acres shut down, just before the world broke. Precious little survived that breaking, but somehow, this monument to jingle did.

Why did this hulk remain standing? What community mushroomed up inside its cracked and crumbling walls? How do they eke out their day to day? What threats do they face?

Hola Gauntleteers!

I’m starting up a short run of Apocalypse World over play-by-post for the Gauntlet community. Play-by-post is an amazing way to develop characters and situations, and I’d like to share my long experience with the Gauntlet crowd, especially with one of my favorite games. We will have a bang-up time, with properly motivated players!

I’m looking for four or five interested players who can generally post at least once a day on weekdays and a couple times over the weekend. Our game will begin in November, and we’ll conclude in February 2016.

If you’re interested in running through this Gauntlet, and “Playing to find out,” let me know in the comments below. Looking for the right mix of folks, so we might have to communicate one-on-one before the game’s “full.”

(Another cool video of Rolling Acres: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AmW3aNWscCk)

Oh, and there’s one more thing. I’m going to host regular Hangouts on Air where we’ll chat about the events in the game. It will serve a couple purposes:

– Give everyone a chance to keep up on the game in case they’re interested.

– Also, it will let us gab about interesting characters and moments. If you’d like to be involved every once in awhile, cool! I’ll work out a schedule with you. If not, no problem, but we’ll probably be talking about your character. (Not you, by name… but I am a fan of your characters, remember?)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1vcgFkJ9RBI

Some quick notes on this weekend’s Gauntlet Hangouts games…

Some quick notes on this weekend’s Gauntlet Hangouts games…

For Saturday Morning Cartoons, we played our first session of Marshall Miller’s The Warren. I was pretty happy with how it went. I tried to follow Marshall’s advice of incorporating details from all five senses into my descriptions of things, and I think it created the desired effect. The players did a really terrific job of infusing their bunnies with distinct personalities, and I think that’s what ultimately made the session for me. I just really enjoyed those rabbits, with all their hangups and flaws.

Daniel Lewis was out this week for Story Game Sunday, so I did the lazy shit I always do whenever that’s the case, and facilitated Fiasco. We did Joshua Fox’s House of Ill-Repute playset, which is about the seedier side of British politics. It took us a minute to get into the swing of things, but once we got going, we told a wickedly good story in the vein of House of Cards. Honestly, it made me want to learn more about UK politics so I can play again, but a little more ably. As it was, we were hand-waving a lot of the particulars. Still, it was good stuff.

Thanks to all the players for joining in: Yoshi Creelman Paul Edson Rob Deobald Richard Rogers steven watkins David LaFreniere and Philipp Neitzel.