Category: The Gauntlet: Our Community

So this is just an observation I’m having as I’m doing my prep for my first Monster of the Week game.

So this is just an observation I’m having as I’m doing my prep for my first Monster of the Week game.

So this is just an observation I’m having as I’m doing my prep for my first Monster of the Week game… The majority of the PbtA games that I’ve read in the last three months are comprise a really amazing set of tools for teaching people how to be GOOD gamemasters (DMs, MCs, whatevers). At first I basically ignored the Monster Hearts MC prep work and just relied on my experience as a gamemaster. About halfway through I sat down and did the work. Yeah, I understood the basic concepts and how they worked in play from my own “rules soft” approach to gaming, but man I wish I’d had these back in the 90s! Plus, after doing the work I came away with a much more… I don’t know useable framework. Useable isn’t really the word, the idea I’m thinking of is something like portable. It helped me to get done only what I needed to get done, and in such a way so as to be able to keep the whole of the frame work of the rules and the fiction available to me as my group created the story.

Sitting here doing the work for tonight’s game I’m finding that, while I have a general idea of how to do things, there are some really good lessons implicit and explicit about how to “stay on target” during prep, including how to leave plenty of room for the unknown specifically useful for MotW sure, but having started to gnaw on them, I am definitely seeing how some of this game’s perspectives will help my D&D monthly game.

I have to say though, I owe a lot to using what I’ve heard in the various podcasts here from The Gauntlet crew, and I have blatantly stolen some of the tricks I’ve observed. So thanks for those 😀

Hi All

Hi All

Originally shared by Goblins Henchman

Hi All

I had a go at making another Spreadsheet Adventure Module, this time to support Shane Ward’s Dusty Door module for BLUEHOLME. Below are some screen capture images, with some examples pop-up texts.

The Excel file (working copy) can be downloaded from this Dropbox folder:

https://tinyurl.com/y8zrt6cj

I’ve experimented with ‘box-text’ pop-ups in purple, ‘monster text’ pop-ups in red and ‘DM text ‘ pop-ups in yellow (see images).

Interested in making your own Spreadsheet Adventure Module, please see this How-to-Guide: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_MwzFeqLbw

The original PDF file can be downloaded from DriveThru:

http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/234962/Dusty-Door

Shane’s blog:

http://3toadstools.blogspot.co.uk/

I’m keen to get this idea out into the RPG public domain – please consider sharing in da Geekhood.

History of Universal RPGs (Part Eight: 2014-2015)

History of Universal RPGs (Part Eight: 2014-2015)

History of Universal RPGs (Part Eight: 2014-2015)

Woot! Just in time for Easter, we have a new list. It is a doozy. I don’t know how many universal rpgs you thought there were: there are more. Some on this list use classic approaches, but many bring to the table new mechanics and dice tricks. This installment includes Cypher System, a game I’ve been trying out this month via The Gauntlet Hangouts. This is part of my Patreon; if you dig it, considering supporting or resharing the project.

https://www.patreon.com/posts/17861983

This piece by Kate Bullock made me cry. There is so much truth in it. So much.

This piece by Kate Bullock made me cry. There is so much truth in it. So much.

This piece by Kate Bullock made me cry. There is so much truth in it. So much.

Just speaking for myself, I am still being punished three years later for a social media post that, while poorly conceived, certainly did not warrant me being doxxed for it and banned from participating in convention panels. It did not warrant the cold shoulder I still get from so many game designers in the indie space, game designers whose work I still champion despite the fact they are assholes. Honestly, that the Gauntlet is even still here is a testament to my grit, because a lot of people, like Kate says in her piece, would have said “fuck it” and walked away from the hobby.

(Here is the part where my better angels won out and I decided to not tag all the people from the above incident into this post. You’re welcome.)

Anyway, this piece is really great. I highly recommend it.

http://www.bluestockings.ca/2018/03/girl-gamer-path-of-perfection.html?spref=gp

Trying to round out a list of games that have a unique feel to them and/or offer a different gaming experience.

Trying to round out a list of games that have a unique feel to them and/or offer a different gaming experience.

Trying to round out a list of games that have a unique feel to them and/or offer a different gaming experience.

So far I got:

10 Candles

The Skeletons

The Quiet Year

Everyone is John

Ghost Court

The Final GIrl

A Single Moment

What kinda of games would you add to this and what are they about? (Or why is it cool in your opinion?)

Hello everyone!

Hello everyone!

Hello everyone! We are entering the final week of Hack The Planet, my cyberpunk meets climate fiction Forged in the Dark game (using the Blades in the Dark SRD). I had this setting coalescing for ages; ever since I read The Windup Girl and Heavy Weather. Let me give you a short pitch below and if you dig it or know someone who might, hey, consider sharing this post with them and checking out the Kickstarter. There’s tons of art, interviews, and more located on the Kickstarter page.

My goal was to make a retro-future like say, Blade Runner, make sense in this fiction. That movie exists in a space where they wanted an alternate future extrapolated on really specific things happening at that time. Nowadays, climate fiction, or cli-fi, is gaining a lot of steam. What could happen if some of the effects of climate change happened, and what if they happened far sooner than anticipated? When I thought about that, it dawned on me that a retro-future still could be possible. Where we have to pour all our resources into developing tech to combat climate change and radicalized weather and natural disasters/events that occur–rather than the current trajectory of technology now. The result would be some futuristic tech that deals with specific setting, but a sort of archaic construction of previous technologies no longer pertinent.

A massive shelter, called Shelter 1, was constructed in this fiction. One funded by corporations and the superrich. Slowly, as it was completed and their power in this new place is solidified as the world around them is ravaged by the various outcomes of climate change, they’re twisting this place into the megacity we typically know and experience in cyberpunk. I decided to roll with that notion.

In this setting, a lot of cyberpunk tropes are recontextualized. Take actual blade runners for instance. Instead of hunting down replicants, they’re empowered by the corporate congress to hunt down Tippers, people who contributed to the occurrence of these radical natural phenomena, called Acts of God. The technology is powered by physical labor. If you’re caught, it’s time to power the city… And you better believe the major contributors of this future, the corporations, aren’t the ones paying this toll.

The city has a massive population of climate refugees and you’re a few of them, shirking the existence of normal folk, deciding to take back some agency and power. Whether to subvert the corporations or simply get what you think you deserve, you’re people on the fringes of society, operating in an underworld. Glitches in the system.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/samjokopublishing/hack-the-planet/description

Hello there everyone! I’m relatively new, and like a lot of folks here I’m making my own game.

Hello there everyone! I’m relatively new, and like a lot of folks here I’m making my own game.

Hello there everyone! I’m relatively new, and like a lot of folks here I’m making my own game.

Sadly, I’ll be the first to admit I’m basically making a D&D-inspired fantasy heartbreaker – it’s more a game to fulfill the little tweaks I want in my gaming experience rather than something universal. Nonetheless, I hope that over the next year I can get a few folks interested.

As is typical with heartbreakers, even if the final system isn’t necessarily a groundbreaking achievement, some of the discoveries or fun mechanical quirks along the way can be shared, stolen, and disseminated by everybody.

A quick example of some jokey ‘Perks’ that the game will have:

“`

Hidden Depth of Character

You gain 3 additional aptitude points, which do not need to be assigned at the moment. You can assign them on the adventure. You may also spend an aptitude point to know a language, as it comes up.

Snake Eater

A lifetime of poor decisions has miraculously resulted in your immunity to poison. You are immune to the poisoned condition, and when subjected to poison damage, you ignore all of the listed effects and instead heal 1 HP in response.

Stubbornness

Your mule-like stubbornness is legendary, serving you well in everything from facing your mother to facing dragonbreath. You gain a +1 Stubbornness bonus to all saving throws.

Vitruvian Proportions

Calculate the average ability score of your party’s members, not including your own ability scores. Change every ability score on your character sheet to that average score.

“`

I realised the other day that the Gauntlet community is really supportive, but there’s someone we tend to leave out:…

I realised the other day that the Gauntlet community is really supportive, but there’s someone we tend to leave out:…

I realised the other day that the Gauntlet community is really supportive, but there’s someone we tend to leave out: Ourselves. We support each other, we say how great our playmates were, we complement each other’s designs, but we often are so…quiet about our own achievements. Your game design is brilliant and evocative, mine is just a dumb little hack. You are an awesome player that weaves amazing stories, I’m just fumbling through. That kind of thing.

So I’m making a space for that. Right here and right now. I’m making a space for us to be proud of the work we’ve done and not be ashamed. I’m making a space, right here, for you to tell this community the GREAT stuff you’ve done, and the AWESOME stuff you want to do. I’m letting you set a goal, and revel in its achievement. Next week we’ll do this again, and we’ll have new achievements, and new goals.

Format is Wishes and Stars. A Star is something that you liked, a Wish is something that you want to see. It elegantly lets us both look back and look forward at the games we play (or games we will play, or will design, or something totally different!).

I’m so excited to hear about all the things you’ve done and will do.

Woohoo! Tonight I will be shlippings into my first ever gauntlet hangout! Here’s to hoping it goes well!

Woohoo! Tonight I will be shlippings into my first ever gauntlet hangout! Here’s to hoping it goes well!

Woohoo! Tonight I will be shlippings into my first ever gauntlet hangout! Here’s to hoping it goes well!