This message from a Patreon supporter brought a smile to my face!
This message from a Patreon supporter brought a smile to my face!
Hey guys – I joined the Patreon a while ago, and listened to the podcasts before that, and I wanted to take a moment to thank you for what you’re putting out into the hobby. I’ve been playing for a long time but I’m fairly new to story games in general & PbtA specifically – my first exposure to a PbtA game was when I came across World Wide Wrestling on DriveThru & thought it would make a great Christmas present for my husband. That strange phrase, “Powered by the Apocalypse”, led to a Google search that led to a fundamental shift in how I understand & play games. Cue that sword descending from the sky in a shaft of holy light from the end of The Messenger, full choral accompaniment and all that shit. I found your podcasts & community after that and so much of what you do has helped me change my habits & change the games my groups play. Watching Lowell run Gauntlet League Wrestling helped the game come alive for my husband & me (and helped me to find where the fun is in professional wrestling). I started GMing my first 2 games recently – Fellowship & Lady Blackbird. Listening to Discern Realities helped to unlock the mechanisms of PbtA in my head and gave me tools that I’ve used in my Fellowship game.
I joined the Patreon specifically to get the Codex with Rich’s Lady Blackbird article and those event seeds & questions have come to my aid over and over again! I’m generally a lurker online (by contrast, XXXX, my husband, has been thrilled to find new people to babble at online) but given how many of my recent games have been influenced by the Gauntlet, I wanted to thank you for being awesome!
Cc: Richard Rogers Kate Bullock Lowell Francis David LaFreniere (also, indirectly, Nathan Paoletta Vincent Baker Meguey Baker John Harper Jacob Randolph)
The Gauntlet Podcast is back! In Episode 96, I sit down with Todd Nicholas from Wheel Tree Press to discuss their current KS campaign for The Sword, the Crown, and the Unspeakable Power. It’s a really in-depth discussion of the game, and I get to fanboy a bit since Todd’s show, The Jank Cast, was a major inspiration for the Gauntlet community (seriously: the Gauntlet would not exist without The Jank Cast).
Joshua Fox and Becky Annison have made two Lovecraftesque scenarios that previously appeared in Codex available on…
Joshua Fox and Becky Annison have made two Lovecraftesque scenarios that previously appeared in Codex available on the Black Armada site!
Originally shared by Joshua Fox (Rabalias)
We just posted two new scenarios, taken from the Gauntlet’s Codex (which you can get the full edition of by backing their patreon at https://www.patreon.com/gauntlet – highly recommended):
– Ex Nihilo, in which a crew of renowned scientists and a washed-up celebrity astronaut fly into the heart of a black hole.
– Pizza Time!, in which the bizarre and lurid tales told by the staff at an ageing chain restaurant may contain more than a grain of truth.
I’m having a really great month of gaming. I’m presently running two games, The Sprawl by Hamish Cameron and AW 2E by Vincent Baker and Meguey Baker, and I’m playing in a short campaign of Monster of the Week by Michael Sands. Here are some thoughts on each…
The Sprawl
We just wrapped our first mission in our new series of The Sprawl, and it was pretty great. We’re playing in a cyberpunk version of New Orleans, where the wealthy live in antebellum homes preserved in carefully managed arcologies, and everyone else lives in a city smashed against the side of a titanic levee. The team’s first target was Vianne Dubois (who I imagine looks like Thandie Newton), a performer who uses a retroscape AR system to recreate a smoky jazz club called The Purple Lotus.
I continue to be impressed with The Sprawl’s Directives method of gaining XP. The mission directives provide a reward for arriving at each critical step of the mission, but the playbook directives (often) provide a reward for disrupting that mission in some way. It creates a really fantastic tension, and within that tension is a huge amount of story. When I say The Sprawl is in a “corridor” rather than “on rails,” this is what I’m getting at. Fundamentally, the characters are moving from point A to point B, but there are a lot of interesting things happening on the sides, too. You can engage with those things on the side, but no matter what, everything is pushing you to point B. The difference is simply in what point B looks like when you get there.
Anyway, great fun so far. Thanks to my players: Maxime Lacoste Phillip Wessels steven watkins Michael G. Barford and Christo Meid
AW 2E
Apocalypse World is going pretty well so far. Our apocalypse is a world wracked by powerful, mercurial storms. And not just real-world storms, but crazy shit like columns of fire, swirling funnels of shrapnel, and chain lightning. Our survivors are a small caravan of folks who move within a mountain range in order to get shelter from these storms. They camp for a week, maybe two, before another storm comes and they have to pack up and move to the next side of the mountain.
My favorite thing so far about this series is the weird ecologies and culture that have developed because of these storms. We have mutant bears called “feast beasts,” so-named because of the bony, spiky protrusions on their backs, upon which smaller animals get impaled during the storms. We have a community of storm riders who use special gliders to catch the updrafts, and are always floating overhead, scouting the area below for supplies. Our own caravan, which is always gaining new members and leaving others behind, has developed a series of almost funereal rites related to the storms that mark these changes in the group’s composition. It’s all very sad and frustrating and beautiful.
Thanks to my players on that series: Jennifer Erixon, Steven, David LaFreniere and Phillip.
Monster of the Week
I’ll have more to say about this one on Episode 97 of The Gauntlet Podcast, particularly about my character and how I have chosen to play him, but for now, just a few stray thoughts:
-Michael is doing a really terrific job running the game. It’s the first time he has run MotW, and the first time he has run something for the Gauntlet. Combined with the normal sorts of jitters that come with GMing (along with the fact that I am a player in the game) and this could have been a fucking disaster. But it’s not! Far from it, in fact. He’s got great GM instincts and is totally cool and collected. I’m impressed.
-The players are doing a nice job exhibiting GGG behavior. Everyone seems genuinely interested in making sure everyone else gets plenty of screen time or are otherwise staying involved in what’s going on. It’s a small thing, but I appreciate it (I’ll have more to say about this on Episode 97, too).
-We have a romance between two elderly characters! First of all, just having two senior citizen characters is pretty rare in and of itself, but the players are going in further to develop a romance between them. It’s very sweet, but never cloying; they have a genuine passion for one another. I’m enjoying watching it unfold.
Thanks to everyone involved in that one: Michael X. Heiligenstein Gerrit Reininghaus Horst Wurst and Johannes Oppermann
You might have noticed that, in the last week or so, we haven’t been releasing podcasts with the same frequency as we usually do. That’s on purpose. We’re presently in the middle of a short break while we recharge our batteries, hammer out some scheduling issues, and get some new folks set up to help out with things. We find it’s helpful to take a small break every now and then in order to set ourselves up for success in the months to follow.
I’d like to do some crowdsourcing for the Miscellany in Codex – Madness.
I’d like to do some crowdsourcing for the Miscellany in Codex – Madness. The piece is called “Three-dozen Great Old Ones.” Essentially, we are looking to expand the Cthulhu mythos. Submissions should be no more than 2-3 short sentences. By submitting here, you’re agreeing to let us use it (you’ll get a credit on the issue). We’re looking for evocative stuff; the purpose of the Miscellany is to inspire the reader.
Your Great Old One should have a commonly accepted name, an epithet or nickname, and a short description of how it appears. Importantly, we’re interested in going beyond the amorphous blobs and tentacle monsters you normally associate with the Cthulhu mythos. Here are some examples:
“Guulgorthan, Who is Naught but Mouths, appears as a bloated figure with mouths where its eyes, nose, and ears should be, and has a maw at every point of articulation on its body.”
“Ak’telor, the Flesh Forest, whose body is a grove of meaty, vibrating trees, each with a pulsating, bloodshot eye in the center of its trunk.”
“Ka-Inod, the Screaming Tower, a massive cylindrical protrusion of black, oily flesh covered in long, hard quills upon which insane revelers have willingly impaled themselves.”
I am pleased to announce the newest member of the Comic Strip AP family, Dungeon World: Alford Soultaker!
I am pleased to announce the newest member of the Comic Strip AP family, Dungeon World: Alford Soultaker! This one is being produced by Oli Jeffery and Rob Bullen (with show notes helpfully provided by Michael G. Barford). This one is really strong from a narrative perspective. Oli & Rob’s RP is solid, and they have managed to tell a lot of story in a very short amount of time. I’m excited to hear where this one goes!
Here are a couple of Special Moves I created for my upcoming DW living campaign, We Hunt the Keepers!
Here are a couple of Special Moves I created for my upcoming DW living campaign, We Hunt the Keepers!
Slay a Keeper
When you deliver the killing blow to a Keeper, you learn some of their secrets. You may select one of the following:
-Take a +1 ongoing to any move directly related to hunting the next Keeper.
-Take a +1 forward to Turn the Key.
-Reveal the Keepers’ secret plan. At the end of the session, the GM will ask “What did you see when you glimpsed their secret plan?” Tell them three distinct images you saw in your mind’s eye when you delivered the killing blow and then mark 1 XP.
Turn the Key
When you spend time caressing, studying, or otherwise bonding with a Key, roll +WIS. On a 10+, hold 2. On a 7-9, hold 1. You may spend the hold at any time to invoke the power of the Key (work with the GM to determine what that means).
On a 12+, you may permanently bond with the Key. Work with the GM to create a magic item or custom move associated with the Key’s power.
On a miss, the Key gains some power over you. The GM gets 3 hold they may spend at any time to suggest a course of action that conforms to the Key’s desires. If you take the suggested course of action, mark 1 XP.
Check out our new RSVP site for Gauntlet Hangouts!
Check out our new RSVP site for Gauntlet Hangouts!
Many of the games being added to the calendar for May, June, and July are opening-up for general RSVPs very soon (or have already opened). Check out the full list on our new RSVP site. If a game is full, join the waitlist; you’ll be notified via email if you get into the game.
