Category: The Gauntlet: Our Community

Another exquisite illustration going into Codex – Crystal. This one is by Vandel J. Arden.

Cc: Matt Stuart

Congrats to Slade Stolar and Tom McGrenery for their Indie Groundbreaker Awards nominations! Slade got a nomination for Best Rules for The Indie Hack. Tom got a nomination for Best Setting for Malandros.

http://www.igdnonline.com/indie-groundbreakers-awards-2017-nominees/

The Gauntlet After Dark – On creating genuine friendships in an online space

I have lately found myself feeling somewhat adrift when it comes to the hobby. There are a lot of instances when I’m looking at the various Gauntlet things I have to do, evaluating which games I want to play, or scanning RPG social media spaces, and this creeping phrase enters my head:

“Do I even care about this anymore?”

I think I do. But I also think I need more from it.

I put a huge premium on being able to speak with people, bond with them, and make genuine friendships. It’s why simply producing podcasts has never been enough for me. I need to interact with the people who listen to my shows, I need to play games with them, I need to get to know them. When the Gauntlet started transitioning to being a more public space, I found it deeply uncomfortable. When your natural state is to carefully cultivate community, friendship, and loyalty, it freaks you out when there are suddenly people around who want things from you but whose motives are unclear or impersonal.

I’ve been trying to find ways of enriching the experience of being in the Gauntlet, both for my own satisfaction (and sanity) and that of the people who choose to engage with the community. The Slack group has helped tremendously. Today, for example, there were a lot of really fascinating conversations going on, all of which were being conducted respectfully and with a genuine care and admiration for each participant (seriously: you should look into the Slack group; it’s a pretty phenomenal space). Several of us have organized a Gauntlet friend circle for playing Nintendo Switch games (using Discord for chat) and that has been a blast.

But I think we can do better. The idea I am currently batting around is using Discord chat to do debriefs after Gauntlet Hangouts games. We play a ton of fucking games, but we’ve always been missing that debrief/decompression conversation you get with face-to-face games. If the Discord chat is handled correctly, I think this could enrich the Gauntlet Hangouts experience in a massive way. It’s not enough to simply play games; we also need to talk about how those games went. We need to hear from each other. We need to create a supportive environment.

Anyway, I find myself lately obsessed with genuine interactions, genuine friendships. And so I think it’s going to be a focus for the next few months.

Hi everyone! A quick reminder about guidelines for posting in the Community.

1) Your post should be relevant to the Gauntlet. What does “relevant to the Gauntlet” mean? Relevant means there is a direct connection to something we have talked about on our podcasts or somewhere else in the community (like in our Slack group or Gauntlet Hangouts). “Connected to roleplaying games in some way” is too broad. If you’re not sure, just ask me before you post.

2) Re-shares presented without context are uncool. The reason for this is re-shares without some kind of accompanying text feel impersonal, or like the Gauntlet was an afterthought. Tell us why we should look at this thing you are sharing with us. The best practice is to simply not re-share to this page. Direct links with original accompanying text are always preferred.

3) Be careful when it comes to self-promotion. This is not because of any particular rule we have, but rather, if you want the thing you are promoting to be received in the best possible light, you need to get someone else to vouch for it here or ask me first before you post.

And just so folks don’t think I’m targeting anyone in particular, I’ve been talking about the need to post this reminder for a couple of weeks now on Slack.

Thanks!