Google+ community from Dec 2012 to March 2019
Episode 09 and 10 of The Woodlands: Mouse Guard are now in the PSP feed!
Episode 09 and 10 of The Woodlands: Mouse Guard are now in the PSP feed! Episode 09 is linked below. Episode 10 can be found here:
http://www.gauntlet-rpg.com/pocket-sized-play/the-woodlands-mouse-guard-10
Enjoy!
http://www.gauntlet-rpg.com/pocket-sized-play/the-woodlands-mouse-guard-09
Dreams to everyone playing or running games on Gauntlet Hangouts.
Dreams to everyone playing or running games on Gauntlet Hangouts. We currently have 86 sessions on the calendar. 76 of those games are full. Of the 10 that are not full, 6 of them have 3 or more players, meaning they will make. The other 4 are new to the schedule.
That’s 88% full, 95% full enough. That makes me so freaking proud and happy.
We have got to figure out ways to expand things, though. The demand is definitely there, and only going to increase when we open up Patreon slots next year.
There are roughly five days remaining to get your submission in for the Gauntlet Con writing contest!
There are roughly five days remaining to get your submission in for the Gauntlet Con writing contest! The deadline is 10.16.17 at 11:59 PM EDT. The number of submissions we have received so far is pretty small, which means this contest is wide open. Check out the prizes:
One winner receives:
-$100 cash prize
-Gets their submission published in Codex (with original art and layout)
-Gets featured on one of our podcasts.
Up to two runners-up each receive:
-$50 cash prize
One thing that goes unspoken, but is probably worth mentioning now: we use these writing contests to populate Codex as a general matter. There is a strong chance that if we like your submission but it doesn’t win, we may pay you for the right to publish it in Codex anyway.
And it’s just a great way of getting your stuff noticed. The Codex team is reading through these super carefully, and the panel of judges is awesome. And speaking of judges…
I am SO EXCITED to announce the final judge for the contest: Sarah Richardson! Sarah is the author of Velvet Glove and co-author of Bluebeard’s Bride. She has also done a lot of work in the OSR space (Pro tip: if you want your entry to impress her, might I suggest you make it either horrifying or gross af).
Get those entries in! And please re-share this post!
http://www.gauntlet-rpg.com/keepers-of-the-gauntlet-contest.html
At the Gauntlet, we spend countless hours advocating for roleplaying games, teaching people how to play roleplaying…
At the Gauntlet, we spend countless hours advocating for roleplaying games, teaching people how to play roleplaying games, sharing that deep and abiding love we have for roleplaying games with anyone who will listen. The amount of time we spend on podcasts, putting together Codex, organizing game sessions, and all the rest, is staggering.
We get a lot of personal satisfaction from doing those things, especially when it comes to playing games, but the vast majority of the benefits–and 100% of the monetary benefits–are collected by the game designers and creatives of the hobby.
Are we a big deal like One-Shot? No. Do we have the audience of Friends at the Table? No. But the benefits, such as they are, flow directly to the game design community (in particular, the indie game design community).
I must insist the game design community start having the Gauntlet’s back. I rarely ask anything of the game design community, and I never use our platform for anything other than to boost indie game designers, but I must insist people start having our back. I have spent years battling bullshit territorialism and tribalism in this hobby and it is exhausting. If you’re a game designer who has ever had a positive association with the Gauntlet and you see or hear people trying to fuck us over, you need to say something. If we boost your game on one of our podcasts, you need to boost our podcast. If we played your game on YouTube, you need to tell people about that video.
I’m sick of this one-way street. The Gauntlet is part of the indie side of the hobby. I insist we start being treated like it.
(I’m turning off comments and re-shares, because I’m mostly venting here, and I don’t have the energy or bandwidth to manage a thread right now. If anyone wants to chat with me privately, you know where to find me).
We have a fantastic episode of The Gauntlet Podcast for you this week.
We have a fantastic episode of The Gauntlet Podcast for you this week. Kate Bullock and I are joined by Marissa Kelly of Magpie Games for an episode we’re calling “GMing 201.” We deal with some advanced GM topics, such as Trusting the Story, Finding the Scene, Killing Your Darlings, Reading the Table, and more!
Thanks to Paul Edson for this week’s edit.
Enjoy!
http://www.gauntlet-rpg.com/the-gauntlet-podcast/episode-118-gming-201
You have one more week to submit an entry to the Keepers of the Gauntlet Writing Contest.
You have one more week to submit an entry to the Keepers of the Gauntlet Writing Contest. Deadline for entries is 10.16.17 at 11:59 PM EDT.
Also: I’m excited to announce Sophia Brandt, who writes about old school and narrative games at dieheart.net, will be sitting on the judging panel!
Follow the link to learn about prizes, the rest of the judging panel, and submission guidelines.
http://www.gauntlet-rpg.com/keepers-of-the-gauntlet-contest.html
Episodes 07 and 08 of The Woodlands: Mouse Guard are now in the Pocket-Sized Play feed!
Episodes 07 and 08 of The Woodlands: Mouse Guard are now in the Pocket-Sized Play feed! Episode 07 has a really enjoyable campfire scene near the end. In it, we get to see a moment of relaxation and camaraderie between the mice, a break from their dangerous trek across the territories. In Episode 08, we use the power of montage (and my Painting the Scene technique) to portray the patrol’s highspeed journey on skink-back. I talk about it a bit more in the preface.
Episode 07 is linked below.
Episode 08 can be found here:
http://www.gauntlet-rpg.com/pocket-sized-play/the-woodlands-mouse-guard-08
Thanks to the players: Christo Meid Fraser Simons David LaFreniere steven watkins and River Williamson
Enjoy!
http://www.gauntlet-rpg.com/pocket-sized-play/the-woodlands-mouse-guard-07
Here is the newest episode of Fear of a Black Dragon, just in time for your weekend listening pleasure.
Here is the newest episode of Fear of a Black Dragon, just in time for your weekend listening pleasure. In this one, Tom McGrenery and I go through The Warlock of Firetop Mountain, originally part of the Fighting Fantasy game books, and later adapted as a module for the roleplaying game derived from that series, Advanced Fighting Fantasy. We take a hard look at the idea of loving things for nostalgic reasons, and how you might take those things and use them in a more modern context.
Thanks to Paul Edson for this week’s edit.
Enjoy!
http://www.gauntlet-rpg.com/fear-of-a-black-dragon/the-warlock-of-firetop-mountain
Writing Contest Judges
Writing Contest Judges
I am delighted to announce some of our judges for the Keepers of the Gauntlet writing contest! The judging panel may grow by one or two more people by the end of the week, but for now, check out this amazing lineup:
Kate Bullock, blogger, podcaster, and community organizer extraordinaire.
Jason Lutes, cartoonist and author of the terrific game books The Perilous Wilds and Freebooters on the Frontier.
Marshall Miller, who wrote the fabulous Lapins & Lairs (tragically re-named The Warren) and whose Dungeon World starters have been a huge inspiration for the contest.
Evlyn M, a fantastic illustrator who has worked on OSR zines, as well as Plundergrounds and Codex.
Eric Nieudan, writer, game designer, and author of Macchiato Monsters.
Ray Otus, hearty friend of the Gauntlet and author of the Plundergrounds zine.
Time is running out to get your entries submitted! The deadline is October 16th at 11:59 PM EDT. Check the link below for more info, including prizes and submission guidelines!
http://www.gauntlet-rpg.com/keepers-of-the-gauntlet-contest.html
I have just finished reading John Harper’s Blades in the Dark and I wanted to share a few thoughts…
I have just finished reading John Harper’s Blades in the Dark and I wanted to share a few thoughts…
First of all, I devoured the book in two sittings. This is a really terrific text. Everything is very easy to follow, the advice peppered throughout is fantastic, and the setting material is everything I hoped it would be when I backed the KS. I find most of Evil Hat’s books to be well-written, but somewhat clinical (and a little boring). Blades was a nice change of pace in that regard.
Another pleasant surprise is how much having the full text has adjusted my thinking on the game. One of the things I found frustrating about the Quickstarts (several of which I ran) is the text frequently paired a seemingly-fiddly mechanic with advice for the GM to just do what feels right or make a judgment call. That did not match up with what I normally like in RPGs, which is to say, if there is a mechanic, I want that mechanic to produce a dependable outcome, not to have to make a judgment call as the GM, or feel like I can just discard the mechanic entirely. I found this particularly jarring in a game that has a lot more rules than the games I usually play.
But this approach makes a lot more sense in the context of the full book. One of the things I like about the book is that it actively challenges you to think about what you might do in any given situation as the GM. There are sections throughout called Questions to Consider. In them, the author asks you to consider different angles for the examples of play you just read. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything like that before in a game text, and I really liked it. In fact, throughout the book, you get the sense that it wants you to actively think about being the best GM you can be. As someone who famously (within our community, at least) treats GMing like a Very Important Matter, this approach has a lot of appeal, and I found it very exhilarating.
And so, in that sense, the advice to just do your best or make a judgment call is not an invitation to ignore the rules or fudge things, but rather, it’s permission to get it wrong–which is to say, permission to get it wrong in the spirit of finding out what works for you and your group. It’s hard to convey in this limited space how empowering that feels, but it really does.
All in all, a very exciting, refreshing read.