Category: The Gauntlet: Our Community

Getting pumped for Battle-Haiku!

Last night was a great way to end the week! We had two tables. Mine did a side quest in our current Dungeon World campaign. The other table played several board games, including Libertalia, Masquerade and Batman Love Letter (which was discussed on this week’s cast). 

Our DW side quest was an exploration of the GM move “Offer Them an Opportunity at a Cost.” The characters were searching an island cemetery that, in its most recent history, had been the home base of the necromancer Belgorul (now long-gone). The crypts and graves had a number of fabulous treasures, but all of it was protected by deeply foul magic and/or cursed, which is to say nothing of the island’s protector, the massive horror known as the Bone Cleric. In the end, they secured a number of cool things, but one character had his eyeballs melted from his sockets; one character lost his lower jaw and right hand; every character has three or more debilities; and one character has a -1 forward on Last Breath. Additionally, the mere act of opening some of the tombs unleashed terrors that will likely haunt the party for some time to come (the absent players can thank them for that). 

I’d be interested in knowing how the board games went from someone who was at that table.  

Thanks to Steve Mains for running the other table, and to everyone else who came out: Jeff Burke Daniel Fowler David LaFreniere Scott Owen Jorge Salazar and Kristen D!

I didn’t get any decent photos, but last night’s DW game was really damn fun. I am particularly enjoying the vibe of this campaign, which is so far very traditional on the surface, but with a strong undercurrent of mystery and surreality. It should be a good lead-in to the bizarre/horrifying stuff we have planned for the summer. 

Other notes from last night:

We had a new player who had only played Pathfinder before, so there was the normal breaking-in process that happens with that. But he was a good sport and seemed eager to learn this new style of play. 

I’m trying this new storytelling technique where I bookend each session with similar narrative gimmicks. So, for the first session, I did a “Though it is entirely beyond your perception…” lead-in about a mysterious king, dressed in red and sitting on an onyx throne, deep in some unknown cave. I then ended the same session with the exact same scene, but with the next few seconds added-in (the king looks up and says something cryptic to the audience). 

I did the same thing with the second session, which I began with a speech about how rumors are like currency, and then proceeded to tell the party of some rumors they could use to their advantage in the session, as well as a rumor that was getting them into trouble at that exact moment. I then ended the session with the same rumors speech, leading to a rumor revealing something threatening on the horizon. 

I’m enjoying this little bookending narrative technique. It creates narrative consistency and has a call-back quality I enjoy.

Here’s to the next session! Thanks to everyone who came out: Daniel Fowler Marcus Centurian Russell Benner Jeff Burke Kyle McCauley and new guy, Christopher.  

We had a good time with Nathan Paoletta’s Vesna Thaw last night. The game is very goofy, but in all the right ways. We’ll discuss it on next week’s podcast. 

In the meantime, here are the call signs for each of our janky robots:

Quiet Night

Hammerfall

Sergei Stoat’s Centrally-Planned Pizza Fun Palace

Goldeneyed Octopussy

Ural My Comrades

Quitya Stalin 9000

Rolling Thunder

Thanks to Russell Benner for prepping the other table, and to everyone else who came out: Kristen D Scott Owen Kyle Kowalski Ferrell Riley and Rich!

We played Meguey Baker’s 1,001 Nights for Story Game Sunday. We were having a terrific time, but it ended a little abruptly. I’m sure we’ll discuss it more on this week’s cast.

Thanks to everyone who came out: Daniel Lewis Steve Mains Russell Benner and Jeff Burke.

For Mandatory Fun Club last night, we played the 2nd edition of The Game of Thrones Board Game (the one published by Fantasy Flight). It is really damn great! There is a lot of table talk, which is something I like in board games, and there is a good amount of strategy without being too complex. It also does a nice job of capturing the flavor of A Song of Ice & Fire. 

Thanks to everyone who came out: Jorge Salazar Daniel Fowler Scott Owen Steve Mains Jeff Burke  and Russell Benner.