Welcome! I am Mike (he/him). I just joined here as well. I work as a Clinical Data Manager at a small biotech. If you don’t yet know what that is, you will find out out when you graduate in biostatistics. I was once upon a time a microbiology major. I have always a giant board game and a long time off and on rpg geek. I fit in as much gaming as I can with my wife and kids. I dream of one day running a successful Kickstarter for a game.
New User Introduction
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Okay, I’m new here and don’t really know what I’m supposed to be doing. My name is Tim Hutchings, I like to make and play games and am looking to try online play. I love the Quiet Year and InSpectres, those are my two go-to games, and I have a secret interest in OSRish games like Troika and Into the Odd.
I’m now living in Peoria, IL and am both cut-off from all my usual game pals and gifted with a lot of time to myself. Perfect chance to try out online play.
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Welcome @timhutchings! The best place to look for something to play is the calendar:
https://gauntlet-hangouts.firebaseapp.com/events
It may look like many things are full but I would highly recommend signing up for waitlists. 70% of games end up pulling from the waitlists.
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Welcome, Tim!
I’d love to hear more about the best practices of playing and running Inspectres. Do you play one shots, or long form games, as well? It could be a really useful thread for people.
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Really? This is something people want to know? Well, the sad truth is that I don’t care for the campaign rules for the game and when we run multiple sessions with the same characters I just let everyone’s stress reset to zero. And it’s more fun to run a bunch of adventures back to back at one sitting and not mess around with the vacation and finance rules anyways.
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That is a useful link. Thank you!
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Hi there! I’m Matt Bohnhoff.
I started playing 2e but for the past 8 years or so I’ve been sinking ever deeper into indie story games, especially those with more of a writer table feel.
I have a couple small games on Itch.io and DriveThruRPG and I help organize New MexiCon, an indie RPG con here in Albuquerque NM
I was a part of the Gauntlet G+ and listen to the podcasts but have found the community intimidating. Y’all always seem like such a tight knit crowd. But I’m trying to muster up the courage to insert myself into your ranks.
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I am out in the Chicago suburbs. Inspectres and The Quiet Years are games I would love to try one shots. Maybe online?
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They are good games! I don’t know if the Quiet Year is a good one for online play. There’s a physicality to you it–you draw on the paper and change those drawings, you put dice on things and move them around. It’s possible but it might not feel right.
InSpectres, on the other hand, should be fine. It’s a shame you aren’t closer as I’m facilitating a session of InSpectres this Sunday here in Peoria.
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Hi Bohnhoff,
I just joined yesterday. From what little I know of the gauntlet-rpg from rpggeek.com, they seem like a friendlly group.
That said, there is a whole extra depth with indy games here that is intimidating. I am the indy rpg geek of my friends.
I have never gotten anything as narrative as many of the games on the gauntlet-rpg to my table. I have managed a couple of sessions of Microscope (was very interesting) and a session of A single Moment and Do: Pilgrims of the Air Temple but otherwise my narrative gaming and improv is limited.
I have played a few less narrative indy games: Dungeon World, Apocalypse World, and Tiny D6 Mecha and Monsters comes to mind.
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We’ve run Inspectres on The Gauntlet Hangouts in the past and @EricVulgaris has run The Quiet Year on their Twitch channel in the past. (For the latter I think Google Drawings tends to be the best bet. And there is a character keeper for Inspectres in the Play Aids folder.) I generally recommend https://rollforyour.party for dice stuff, but I am biased…
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Not this coming week but maybe next I can facilitate a round of InSpectres. I think I want to figure out the culture here and the best practices for how a session is run before I do that. Or maybe we can get someone else to run it for us~
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That sounds great! And I’ve been curious about long term play, but saying you prefer short term play is totally valid and useful feedback!
I’d encourage you to run a session, but I have no idea how new members here end up running games (at least “official” games; of course we can make our own plans to play together whenever we want, in theory). I get the impression that for the officially scheduled games, you have to be invited to run games or something like that.
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You need to play a number of games on the official calendar so people can get to know you. After that you’d talk to @edige23 about getting GM access to the calendar to post games.
A friendly reminder: if you want to coordinate non-calendar games you’ll need to do so either in PMs or through another medium. Doing so in publicly accessible topics here is not allowed.
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Yes, we ask ask potential new GMs play a few games with us, preferably with more than one different GM. That helps familiarize you with the play culture, lets you show potential players who you are, and demonstrates that you can commit to a schedule. If someone’s interested in that and I can get them set up or help them work through that process.
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I understand your point. I am a regular on rpggeek.com but many topics on the Gauntlet forums I have found so far in my very short stent are largely for games that range between somewhat off the beaten path to completely obscure. The depth of the questions are often equally obscure or meta / game theory related.
This leads to threads like Is XP still useful in PbtA design? Or How should I run rule X in obscure game Y?
When I dont know game Y or what an acronym means in post after post, then these threads can be very intimidating. Perhaps, us new bloods can add more general or casual topics in the near future?
That said, in the strings I have understood and participated in, there is nowhere else I have seen with this kind of depth of discussion. Nor is there anywhere I have seen that includes so many gamers willing to talk through a novice alpha draft design of a game.
I hope you stick it out through all the jargon and you find your niche.
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Hi everyone, I’m Gabriel (he/him). I’m an occupational therapy assistant with aspirations to run therapeutic games someday like the folks at Game to Grow. I’m pretty new to TTRPGs, having got into DnD a few years ago with my wife and a few friends. It’s been a fantastic creative outlet and given me a social context where I feel comfortable leading a group and inviting new friends in. One thing led to another and I’ve kind of gone off the deep end into finding indie games, following game designers and starting to dabble in writing my own. I’m slowly working on getting more games to happen locally, looking into a writers center and so on, though after all I’ve come across about good games and practices such as safety tools I’ve been more particular about the kind of games I introduce and how. So far my group has enjoyed Dungeon World, coming from DnD and I’ve got a huge list of games to get them to try next. I’m in an interesting place now of catching up my friends on some of the amazing stuff I’ve found online and via the Gauntlet - we had some pretty important conversations to introduce the x-card, lines and veils etc which were new to everyone but have already made a positive difference at the table. I’ve only been able to play a few sessions on Gauntlet so far, but it was a great experience and a helpful reference to my in-person group about how it’s actually pretty easy to run a game on schedule, using safety tools, having a conversation about tone, and sharing brief feedback at the end. Among strangers across time zones! Finally I’ve been really enjoying Codex and using the miscellanies as writing inspiration when doing my own world building for games- especially with Trophy Gold out now, it’s changed the way I create lists of things that might show up in a game, instead of trying to create a whole plot. Anyway, glad to be here and looking forward to playing with you all. Cheers!
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I guess I should do one of these now that I’ve been here and posting for two weeks or whatever it is. >.>
Hi, I’m Mike (He/him); I’ve been playing RPGs since the mid-80’s, but really discovered the magic and possibility of the space around 2012 (yes, that late) when I got my hands on Mouse Guard and Tenra Bansho Zero, and I’ve been exploring all kids of indie games ever since. I just wrapped up a long running game of Blades in the Dark, and I’m running and playing some short term games while I find something else suitable for the RL group.
Meanwhile, I’m also the Primary Editor of Ryuutama, and, whenever the heck it comes out, Shinobigami. In my “spare time” I’m working on a PbtA game inspired by the Kiseki/Trails series of console JRPGs.
I’m glad to be here, and look forward to maybe someday feeling like I have time in my schedule to join a game. Thank you for having such a welcoming space, I hope I can contribute somehow.
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