Google+ community from Dec 2012 to March 2019
I am thinking of running Death Frost Doom as a one-shot for some friends.
I am thinking of running Death Frost Doom as a one-shot for some friends. David LaFreniere, I believe you have done this. Any advice on squeezing the module into a single session?
I have a question about the games the Gauntlet runs.
I have a question about the games the Gauntlet runs. I would love to get in on them, but I work as a server, which means my schedule at nights changes all the time and I’m not sure I could commit to a weekly time especially considering I run a game with some friends. Are there one-shots people do that I could get in on for just a session without having to make a weekly commitment?
Better Late Than Never:
Better Late Than Never:
I had taken down the original Sheet due to concerns about having emails floating around in a publicly accessable place, and had planned on a better method of doing this.
However, the Ghost of Epimas has come upon me, so I hope this will allow us all to spread some cheer this season.
Currently the big hit among the Slack chatter is Epi-Stuffer #12 which includes Apocolypse World 2nd Edition & UED: You Are The Resistance!
For Big Gift, you can’t go wrong with “Good Will”, as it has 3 games that are winners: AW 2nd Edition, Soth, and The Last Days of Angelkite.
Epic Epimas to all this season!
Just a quick note that Attending.io is back online.
Just a quick note that Attending.io is back online. You should be able to RSVP for Gauntlet Hangouts events as before. Thanks!
Gauntlet Portland brought Slade Stolar’s The Indie Hack to the table last night!
Gauntlet Portland brought Slade Stolar’s The Indie Hack to the table last night!
The rich questions supplied with each class produced quality character background and motifs for the session. Death, represented by the Mother but also actual slain family members, as well as loss being part of a greater balance in nature fueled the story from this starting stage.
We began the adventure en media res, then when the action came to a head we paused to give flashbacks that spotlighted each character. This was an opportunity for players to tell some awesome and poignant story, as well as a way to retroactively procure items now on the character’s person in the present. I appreciated that scene framing was so open that we could do this without trouble!
The pacing wasn’t super focused, as a bunch of people offering different details took the story back and forth in different directions, but still led to a satisfying finale that brought the character development to a head. The Indie Hack did a great job of putting each person’s fiction at the forefront for maximum enjoyment!
The one area I struggled with as a GM was the notion of “Challenge Level”— there’s a bit of GM fiat determining the CL of certain opposition on the fly (opponents but also challenges like traps), and mechanically that +1 or even +2 on the GM’s die can really influence outcomes in a big way. I was tempted to totally drop CL and just write up Details for each challenge that I can then exploit for a bonus to my die, but I was concerned we’d create a mess of too many details to manage and time spent notating them, which is my biggest beef with FATE’s aspects. I wanted detail-rich, not detail-heavy.
I’d definitely bring The Indie Hack to the table again and look forward to seeing the developments Slade has coming down the pipeline. Big thanks to Noah Jay-Bonn, Sam Kusek, and Klint Finley for playing!
Looking for one or two more players to join David LaFreniere, Joby Morey, and myself for a game of DUNGEON PLANET…
Looking for one or two more players to join David LaFreniere, Joby Morey, and myself for a game of DUNGEON PLANET on 12/23, 11am-2pm CST. If you’ve never played on Google Hangouts before no worries – I’ll walk you through it. Happy holidays!
Tonight my son, who recently turned 11, ran his first RPG!
Tonight my son, who recently turned 11, ran his first RPG!
He ran World of Dungeons. He used a one-page adventure, Goblin Gully , but only used the first four rooms of it before he brought it to an end. This was a test run because he wants to run World of Dungeons for his class at their holiday party tomorrow.
Highlights:
– After a fight above ground, we enter the first room of the “dungeon”; it is an empty antechamber. My son suggests we look for traps and secret doors, and lo and behold, there is one! Inside is a beefy goblin with a “magic axe” (one of the rumors in the adventure). After we dispatch the goblin, he then makes up a magic axe, which he says is +1 Strength, and has a “slam attack” and if you roll a critical hit, it shatters “their whole insides, heart, lungs, the liver, all of it, it’s like an earthquake inside their body!”
– At one point, Cary Rogers rolls Volley to fire an arrow at a goblin. She rolls an 8, then rolls damage (enough to kill the goblin). My son describes the hit, by getting up and running back to a clear space in the living room, and acts out as the arrow alllmost missing, but the goblin tries to dodge and jumps into the arrow’s path, and then dies. It was pretty great as he acted it out. He did this eye crossing and fall, so classic.
– He decides the leader goblin is a coward, and while the rest of his lackeys are attacking, he just sits at a table shaking in terror.
– One of the goblins shows up with a frickin’ rifle!
– My Wizard summons a stone spirit, and squishes a goblin, the sound effect he made was horrific.
– The leader reveals that he’d kidnapped some local villagers (the story seed for the dungeon adventure) and begs to be left alive, which we did (he made me roll to “choke him out”)
– At the fourth room, we find the villagers, a mother and father and their little daughter, all in cages. The cages are all locked, by a SUPER AMAZING LOCK, which is powered by LASERS. Luckily, my wife’s ranger has lockpicks (why did she buy lockpicks for her ranger? Well, it worked out), and she aces the roll. A family reunion and success!
Crush the Rebellion
Crush the Rebellion
This looks promising
… mmm I’ll let you all know what I think of it after I’m done reading.
Game Updates… and Unexpected Sentiment:
Game Updates… and Unexpected Sentiment:
Mid-Day PBTA, I’m happy to say, is alive and well! Hoohah! I am thankful for everyone who signs up for these sessions. Selfishly, it allows me to game during a time convenient for me, and also gives me something to look forward to at the beginning of the week. Mondays are soooooo much better now!
Uncharted Worlds has been great fun. I feel like a seasoned sci-fi afficionado can have a ton of fun MC’ing this game. I am not a “deep cuts” kind of sci-fi fan, but am still very much enjoying the experience.
(Faction creation is amazing, jump points are amazing. Fictional freaking gold, and so simple to employ. I can elaborate if anyone cares. :D)
Shout out to the people I gamed with this week! You have all been stellar.
Angela Murray Pawel Solowczuk Sam Niembro
Jim Cummings Jennifer Erixon
Life has gotten a touch busier, and my non-fun workload greater. And so, my Saturday Morning Dungeon World games…. are almost done for good! What an amazing RPG journey for 2016! It’s been great meeting and GMing for so many gauntleteers! Thank you to all the players who have encouraged me, and given me legitimate joy in 2016. I bid the time slot a heartfelt farewell.
The wheels really started to roll in my second session of Masks today.
The wheels really started to roll in my second session of Masks today. Feeling a lot more positive than the first. Boy there’s a lot of things to think about, but as you get going you realise the process produces the stories and npcs you need for the hooks and arcs. Some choice moments I really enjoyed in this session, including what happened to Dr Electrons team (who reside in the Maxter building) and his arch nemesis Atomikov (with the sidekick and intelligent Chimp Comrade Chimp) . I’ll be looking to continue momentum in the new year with another couple of sessions – watch this space.