Tag: Jason Cordova

This is a really great photo set.

This is a really great photo set.

This is a really great photo set. Apart from the amazing and tasteful filter I used, there are some really good action shots. 

We played Jason Morningstar’s The Shab-Al-Hiri Roach. It was a lot of crazy, raucous fun, and many of the scenes were downright repulsive (in a good way!). We have talked about this game before on Episode 10 of the podcast, which you should definitely check out at http://gauntletpodcast.libsyn.com. I’m sure we’ll discuss more of this particular session on Friday’s episode. 

Thanks to everyone who came out: Jeff Burke Steve Mains Ferrell Riley Jessica Scott and David LaFreniere. 

This is a little shout-out to our core group of Gauntleteers . . .

This is a little shout-out to our core group of Gauntleteers . . .

This is a little shout-out to our core group of Gauntleteers . . . 

Every week, and often multiple times a week, you endure Houston traffic (and sometimes tornados and flash floods) to come to our events. You rearrange your calendar, and you are dependable. You are stridently dedicated to the concept of us. 

If I was capable of feeling humility, I would say it is very humbling. 

And now, how shall we count the ways?

The Gauntlet is like a pitcher, and you are its catcher. 

The Gauntlet is like food, and your mouth is always open wide.

The Gauntlet is like water, and you are a vessel, waiting to be filled. 

The Gauntlet comes a knockin’, and you always let it in. 

The Gauntlet is ready to give, and you are ready to receive. 

I salute you, Comrades! #HailSatan

 Daniel Lewis Russell Benner Steve Mains Ferrell Riley Daniel Fowler David LaFreniere Kristen D Scott Owen Jorge Salazar Jeff Burke 

The newest episode of The Gauntlet Podcast is here!

The newest episode of The Gauntlet Podcast is here!

The newest episode of The Gauntlet Podcast is here! In this one, Kristen D joins us to discuss gaming with youths, as well as some board games and roleplaying games, including Libertalia, Masquerade, Vincent Baker’s Murderous Ghosts, Nathan Paoletta’s Vesna Thaw, and Grant Howitt’s Warrior-Poet. 

I think this episode is one of our best yet. Be sure to stick around until the end!

http://gauntletpodcast.libsyn.com

Some pics from our Wednesday game night.

Some pics from our Wednesday game night.

Some pics from our Wednesday game night. One table played Eero Tuovinen’s Zombie Cinema and the other played Scott’s hack of The Final Girl in which a daimyo tries to marry off his rude daughter to a number of unlucky suitors.

Zombie Cinema was really cool. It uses a slim, elegant ruleset to successfully pull off what it says on the back of the (literal) box: to tell a story inspired by classic zombie movies. It uses a unique board game-style mechanic, with the zombies getting closer and closer to pawns trying to escape to safety. But rather than the board tracking actual physical distance between the characters and the zombies, it instead tracks the narrative beats of a zombie film, and how “close” the characters are to dying onscreen.

I’ll let someone else chime-in on the Final Girl hack.

Thanks to Scott Owen for sharing his hack with us, and to everyone else who came out : Kristen D David LaFreniere Daniel Lewis Ferrell Riley Daniel Fowler and new guy Michael. 

Daniel Lewis won’t let me talk about negative things on the podcast, but he has no power over me on Google+, so here…

Daniel Lewis won’t let me talk about negative things on the podcast, but he has no power over me on Google+, so here…

Daniel Lewis won’t let me talk about negative things on the podcast, but he has no power over me on Google+, so here it goes:

I am so disheartened by the OSR vs. Story Gamer tribalism that infects the indie RPG scene. It is the fucking worst, because, while I am principally a story gamer, I have a lot of affection for what the OSR people do, too. Mostly, I like to play games that are good. I don’t attach any kind of ideology to it, and I would certainly never say to anyone who is enjoying the kind of gaming they do “You’re destroying the hobby” or “You’re doing it wrong” (caveat for Pathfinder players: you are doing it wrong).

Maybe the role of The Gauntlet, and other gaming communities relatively new to the scene, is to reject this tribalism, and to reject the idea of using games to advance an agenda. In fact, as far as The Gauntlet goes, I’d say our focus on relentlessly playing games just for the fun of doing so makes us pretty radical in the indie RPG scene. 

Thoughts? 

Today’s session of Grant Howitt’s Warrior Poet was much better than the one we played last year.

Today’s session of Grant Howitt’s Warrior Poet was much better than the one we played last year.

Today’s session of Grant Howitt’s Warrior Poet was much better than the one we played last year. The game has a few funny things going on, mechanically-speaking, particularly as it relates to turn order and scene-framing, but they are issues that can be easily dealt with by doing a bit of house-ruling.

Importantly, we had a lot more fun with the haiku-fueled duels this time around. We put a strict 1-minute time limit on writing each line of haiku, which sped things up considerably. The time restriction also made the process feel a little more duel-like because of the pressure to get your line done quickly. It felt good.

Ultimately, this is one of those odd games every story gamer worth their salt should try out. The character creation process is still one of the most enjoyable out there, and the mechanics are admirably ambitious, even if they need to be massaged a bit. I don’t think I have as much affection for Warrior Poet as Dan does, but I can’t help but respect it as an artistic effort. 

Thanks to Daniel Lewis, Jeff Burke and Ferrell Riley for being beautiful today. 

I’ll post our haiku record in a comment.