Jason Cordova – Page 52 – The Gauntlet G+ Archives

Codex Spotlight – The Society for Vegan Sorcerers

Codex Spotlight – The Society for Vegan Sorcerers

The Society for Vegan Sorcerers appeared in Codex – Yellow. It’s a committee LARP about a group of Carcosan sorcerers who endeavor to find vegan-friendly alternatives to human sacrifice. It was written by Wendy Gorman and features an illustration by Sean Poppe (see below).

Codex – Yellow was about Carcosa, and the various ways the setting has been interpreted in literature, visual media, and RPGs. The Carcosa OSR setting (presently being published by Lamentations of the Flame Princess) has always been controversial because it features some pretty gnarly depictions of sexual violence and human sacrifice. The Society for Vegan Sorcerers, in addition to being a clever, wholly original game, is also a deep subversion of both the Carcosa text and its critics, and I love it for that. The basic absurdity of the premise manages to mock not only the ridiculous gruesomeness of some of the rituals depicted in Carcosa but also the idea that invoking magic powerful enough to wrangle the Great Old Ones would require anything less than that level of gruesomeness. Whether it was Wendy’s intention or not, the piece manages to be both a game and a commentary about the hobby, and I’m so into it. You may not be super-familiar with Wendy’s work, but trust: she has a voice when it comes to game design, and that’s not something you can say about a lot of designers. I hope more people discover her stuff in the months to come.

Codex – Yellow will be in the Gauntlet Patreon feed until May 31st!

https://patreon.com/gauntlet

Here’s a link to Episode 03 of our Monsterhearts: Mercy Falls series.

Here’s a link to Episode 03 of our Monsterhearts: Mercy Falls series. This is the one where we get to meet Big Man, a character who goes on to become one of my very favorite NPCs to play.

http://www.gauntlet-rpg.com/pocket-sized-play/monsterhearts-mercy-falls-03

Don’t forget: if you’re enjoying this series and don’t want to wait for the next one, the entire eleven-episode run is available on our $2+ Patreon feed!

Codex Spotlight – Stops Along the Journey of the Owl

Codex Spotlight – Stops Along the Journey of the Owl

Stops Along the Journey of the Owl is a feature in Codex – Love. It’s a supplement by Richard Rogers for Lady Blackbird, and contains what are essentially starters for Haven, Nightport, and an entirely new location, Lostrock Mine, as well as a short rules hack for two difficulty levels. Each of the starters contains a set of establishing questions, nuggets of fiction to inspire what might happen at that location, and something Rich calls “Key Cues,” which are opportunities for the GM to seed in a moment built for a specific Player Character to engage one of their starting Keys.

This feature is terrific for a few reasons. For starters, it solves a basic problem many people run into when they play Lady Blackbird, which is that the game starts strong and ends strong, but the middle is a little vague. Second, it reflects Rich’s deep experience with the system. Even brilliant games like Lady Blackbird aren’t perfect, and Rich has played it enough to identify its rough edges. The rules hack for two difficulties and the idea of Key Cues could only come from someone who has spent a lot of time with the game. Finally, it has two beautiful pieces of art by Nery Mejicano (like the one below).

As a reminder, Codex – Love will be in the Gauntlet’s Patreon feed until May 31st!

https://patreon.com/gauntlet

Codex Spotlight – #chrome_rot.exe

Codex Spotlight – #chrome_rot.exe

All the Codex back issues are in the Patreon feed until May 31st. To support that, I’m going to do a daily post highlighting a feature from those issues.

I’m going to start with a feature from Codex – Chrome, which was the second issue of the zine. #chrome_rot.exe is a campaign starter by Fred Bednarski for the mission-based cyberpunk game The Sprawl. It presents a setup for a city that is being ravaged by a cyberware disease called chrome rot. It features three pieces of original art by Gennifer Bone (including the piece below), a set of establishing questions, a list of street impressions, a list of matrix impressions, six custom moves, and a threat clock for the chrome rot disease.

What I love about this starter is it’s designed to easily layer on top of whatever other world-building you do with your group. You can use as much or as little as you wish. If, say, you want the chrome rot disease to exist in the background, maybe to be brought forward at a later time, you can use a few impressions and maybe a question or two to introduce it into the world. If you want the disease to be a major concern in the setting, you can add the custom moves and threat clock. Like all good starters, it’s a toybox (even a playset, you might say), a themed grab-bag to enrich your game. It’s also just very well-written and evocative, and the retro-computer terminal layout by Oli Jeffery is dynamite.

You can get Codex – Chrome in our Patreon feed through May 31st. https://patreon.com/gauntlet

Shrine Contest

Shrine Contest

This is a reminder about the Discern Realities shrine contest. The winner gets a $50 gift card to either Amazon or Drivethru. The winner and up to two runners up will be invited to co-host an episode of the show. Here are the details for the entries:

-400 words max

-A short description of the god or entity the shrine is dedicated to.

-A custom move associated with the shrine.

-A magic item.

-A spell (or a second magic item).

You can send entries to gauntletpodcast@gmail.com. The contest runs through May 31st. If we get enough entries, we will publish them in a special issue of our zine, Codex.

Thanks!

I am running a one-shot of The Veil: Cascade on Friday, May 12th at 8 pm EDT.

I am running a one-shot of The Veil: Cascade on Friday, May 12th at 8 pm EDT. We’ll be using the quickstart rules Fraser Simons made available last week. If you’re interested in joining us, follow the link below!

https://gauntlet-hangouts.firebaseapp.com/event-detail/-Kj3svc8RJsv8COiL4QZ

Our Monster of the Week AP is back!

Our Monster of the Week AP is back! In episode 11, a number of loose ends come back to haunt Robert LaRousse while he takes a formal tour of the Lombardi School.

If you haven’t listened to this series yet, you should definitely give it a shot. We’re doing something quite original both in terms of Monster of the Week mysteries and the sorts of settings you generally find in actual play. It’s one part Purple Noon, one part To Catch a Thief, and one (big) part Suspiria.

For the full set of episodes, check out our YT page: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC9QoUve1LQHu_feDx0snd4w/playlists

Cc: Tom McGrenery Michael G. Barford YG Mitchell

http://www.gauntlet-rpg.com/comic-strip-ap/monster-of-the-week-the-lombardi-school-11

A weird thing about Codex: our community has no reputation for playing (or even discussing) LARP, yet there is a…

A weird thing about Codex: our community has no reputation for playing (or even discussing) LARP, yet there is a surprisingly strong LARP presence in the zine.

In case you missed it, the winners of the 200 Word RPG Challenge have been announced!

The winning games were Mechanical Oryx by Gauntlet fave Grant Howitt, Memories by Santiago Eximeno and Route Clearance by Andy Millar (my personal favorite of the many entries I read).

We offered a few illustrious prizes for the contest this year, and we’ll be getting in touch soon about all those things. In the meantime, big thanks and congrats to David Schirduan and Marshall Miller for organizing this year’s contest, which I am told was bigger than the two previous years combined!

If you haven’t yet had a chance, go check out the winning entries at the link below!

https://200wordrpg.github.io/winners

This week’s episode of The Gauntlet Podcast is faaaascinating!

This week’s episode of The Gauntlet Podcast is faaaascinating! Lowell Francis interviewed Andy Kitkowski about his work translating Japanese roleplaying games, as well as Japanese gaming culture.

Fun fact: one of the very first Gauntlet projects was an attempt to make a PbtA game inspired by Tenra Bansho Zero. It didn’t pan out, but for awhile we were really obsessed with TBZ, so it was neat to hear Andy talk about the process of putting together the American translation.

Anyway, this is a super-interesting conversation. Be sure to check it out!

http://www.gauntlet-rpg.com/the-gauntlet-podcast/episode-99-japanese-tabletop-rpgs-with-andy-kitkowski