Jason Cordova – Page 147 – The Gauntlet G+ Archives

A few pics from The Pathfinder Adventure Card Game.

A few pics from The Pathfinder Adventure Card Game. We’ve been playing this once a week for the last few months. It’s a lot of fun; highly recommended.

Just so you all know, the Meetup asking for money is not something we decided on.

Just so you all know, the Meetup asking for money is not something we decided on. It is an automated thing I am going to turn off.

Smash Bros.

Smash Bros. for Wii U comes out this Friday. I was hoping to have a little Smash Bros get-together on Saturday. If you’re interested, post in the comments.

Howdy, Gauntleteers:

Since we’re coming-up on a new year, I thought it might be a good idea to touch base a bit, particularly with the people who have never come to one of our Meetups.

For those of you who are new, or who have never come out to one of our events, you might be a little overwhelmed by the sheer number of games we run. You might find our taste in roleplaying games to be eclectic or niche (or just ‘not your thing’). Perhaps you are puzzled by the fact we push for a gaming agenda that favors an open and welcoming attitude, or that we honor the Jewish demon queen, Agrat bat Mahlat. If any of that stuff applies to you, or if you’re just interested in learning a little more about us, please continue reading.

I like to think of the Gauntlet as a gaming convention that never ends. There’s always a table to join; always something new to try. But, imagine for a moment that all those cool people you met at Convention X didn’t just go away after the weekend was over. This is our great strength: we are a community. We are a community of committed gamers. We are a community of committed gamers who will never leave you and will always find you, no matter where you are, ready to roll some dice!

It means something to be a member of the Gauntlet. It means you are willing to have the very best drawn out of you at the gaming table. You may not even have that much experience with roleplaying games when you finally submit to us. Or, perhaps you have experience with more traditional games, like Dungeons & Dragons, but are a little nervous about doing the light improv that is required to play the games we play. Maybe you’re just a shy person. But here’s the thing: none of that will matter after the first time you stop by, because you’re going to have a great time and you’re going to amaze yourself. You might also be forced to participate in a blood ritual to the Great Earl of Hell, Andromalius, but that’s a whole other thing.

Being in the Gauntlet means being willing to test your boundaries. Maybe you never thought you’d play a game about sexy teenage monsters. Maybe you never thought you’d do something like play a character of a different gender or sexual orientation than your own. Maybe you feel most comfortable with fantasy and sci-fi, and never thought games about colonialism, road trips, the horrors of the Civil War, or professional wrestling (to name a few) would ever spark your interest. I imagine 99% of us had similar feelings before joining the Gauntlet. Most of us were doing Dungeons & Dragons and Pathfinder and Shadowrun. And even though we still do fantasy and sci-fi, we now do those other things, as well. And we love those things. We also love the Devil.

Finally, being in the Gauntlet means learning the concept of sunk costs. Sure, you may have spent a couple hundred bucks on Shadowrun or GURPS or whatever, but if you can’t find someone willing to play those games with you, it’s best to move on, write those expenditures off as sunk costs, and then dive-in head first into whatever people are playing. I bring this up only because I think there is a large group of people out there who would be having the time of their lives with us, if not for the fact they spent a fortune on some game no one will play with them. They feel like it’s some kind of waste or betrayal to play anything other than the game they blew a bunch of money on. This is very stupid, but also, I suppose, very human. Please don’t let that be the reason you don’t come out to one of our Meetups. Our study of the ancient grimoire known as the Key of Solomon leads us to believe you will play a major role in the coming of the Beast, and it would be a real bummer if we never even got to meet you.

So, that was a lot. Here’s the thing: we’re getting ready to fill-up the calendar for January and February. Our Meetups have attendance limits which get hit very quickly, so if you’ve been thinking about coming out to one of our games, keep your eyes open for the new calendar additions, and jump in while you can. If you’d like a chance to meet us before coming out to a game, consider attending our holiday party, the Krampusnaccht, which is on December 6th and has no attendance limit. We’ll just be hanging out, eating, performing human sacrifices, and playing some relaxed, party-style board games and video games.

Thanks for your time.

How to Transform Your Friends and Family Members Into Roleplayers

How to Transform Your Friends and Family Members Into Roleplayers

When I go home for the holidays, I don’t like to sit around being bored. My family knows if I’m going to be there, we’re playing games, goddamnit, and that’s all there is to it. As such, board games and card games have been staples of my family gatherings for years. And not crap ones, either. We’re talking the good stuff: German/Euro games like Settlers, Pandemic, Bohnanza, and so forth.

Roleplaying games, however, have always been a little trickier. In earlier years, the complexity of the more traditional games, such as Dungeons & Dragons, precluded them becoming a part of my family’s gamer language. It was always easier to just grab Carcassonne or Agricola from the game closet and be done with it.

Recently, however, the explosion of high-quality indie and story games has given me an opening. These games tend to be more rules-light, and often deal with subjects that are more universally understood than elves and dragons and shit, making them more accessible to non-geeks. And accessibility is particularly critical for introducing civilians to the hobby. We’re already asking quite a lot of new players by having them pretend to be someone else and to engage in some creative thinking and improv. You don’t want to increase the cognitive load by forcing them to also wrap their heads around a bunch of numbers and rules.

Still, accessible as they are, there are some story games which are better than others for introducing people to the hobby and making role-players out of them. Each of the following has some particulars to recommend it, but they almost all share the quality of being more like a party game rather than a roleplaying game, which helps a lot when introducing them to new people. Please note: this post assumes some familiarity with the listed games. If you want to know more about them, they can each be Googled (or even Duck Duck Go’d) easily.

The Final Girl This is, hands-down, the best introductory game for people who have never before played a roleplaying game. For starters, its slasher movie theme is easily understood. But where it really shines is how ably it teaches you to role-play. Each of the characters is purposely shallow (which is genre-appropriate for slasher flicks), and they only have one goal in terms of the role-play: to establish one of three types of relationship with other characters (either Frienship, Rivalry, or Screwing), which leads to a mechanical reward that helps keep the character alive. And because you don’t commit to a single character, and because the characters are literally disposable, there isn’t as much pressure to be ‘good.’ You don’t owe the character anything, except to have some fun with him/her. The end result is terrific. Everyone is having a good time camping it up, describing characters meeting their grisly fates, and rooting for the character they hope to be the final girl. But, importantly, and for our purposes, they are making the connection between the role-play (establishing Relationships) and the mechanical reward.

Fiasco This one is a little tougher, as the characters are a bit more complex than the ones found in The Final Girl, and you have to make a deeper investment in them. Still, it has a lot to recommend it when it comes to introducing new people to the hobby. For starters, the mere act of choosing a playset and then going around the table and choosing elements from the various lists contained within is a lot of fun. That fun is reinforced once you start having the pre-game conversation about what it all means. The whole set-up process is wonderfully collaborative, and it goes a long way to getting everyone invested in the story that is about to be told. The game, having set the group up to tell a terrific story, then has the decency to get out of the way by keeping the mechanical framework as light as possible. This one has always been a big hit with my non-gamer friends.

Dungeon World Despite what I said above about ‘elves and dragons and shit,’ I’m still going to include Dungeon World. The game is just so much damn fun. Maybe we add a caveat: use Dungeon World to introduce the hobby to your friends who are already geeks in some other way (video games, board games, etc.). Maybe they have been hearing about 5E and they want to give roleplaying games a chance. Do them (and yourself) a favor: skip Dungeons & Dragons and go straight here.

Lasers & Feelings This was a recommendation from Daniel Lewis, and I can see the logic behind it. The game is pretty light, both thematically and mechanically, but still incredibly satisfying. And because the tone is downright comic, it has that ‘party game’ quality I mentioned earlier. A great choice (and only one page of rules!).

Inspectres Another funny game that has that ‘party game’ feel. A little more complex than Lasers & Feelings or The Final Girl, but still light enough for almost anyone to get into. This is also a great game to get traddy players into story games, as it incorporates the idea of giving players most of the narrative authority, while still having a GM around to call balls and fouls.

Those are my thoughts. Any other recommendations? Has anyone else ever tried to introduce roleplaying games to their non-gamer friends and family? If so, how did it go?

A couple of Saturdays ago, I had dinner with Jeff Burke and his wife, Cheryl.

A couple of Saturdays ago, I had dinner with Jeff Burke and his wife, Cheryl. We had a great time reminiscing about old RPGs, and Cheryl made a terrific Indian dinner. Here are pics of some of Jeff’s old roleplaying games and board games. It’s kind of funny how intensely homoerotic a lot of the art was back then.