New User Introduction

#101

Hi, I’m Colin. I’m an artist and designer and I believe that play is an an incredibly important part of our shared humanity!

I’ve spent the last year or so diving deep into role-playing games, their history and their endlessly exciting permutations and expressions. I started running games for my family and friends about 6 months ago and… let’s just say our board game collection is gathering a lot of dust these days!

I love it. I love everything about it. I love watching my kids light up as they react to my ridiculously bad acting. I love watching my friends express themselves in ways I’ve never seen before. I love the prep work to set the stage and I love letting it all go as my players take the story in directions I would never have been capable of.

I’ve been listening to Jason and Tom almost daily for months (as well as consuming many Gauntlet AP videos), and even though I’m completely new to this community, The Gauntlet has felt like home from the start. There’s nothing else like it. Thanks to all of you who contribute to such a warm and welcoming oasis of creativity and collaboration.

Looking forward,

Colin

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#102

Yay! Another Midwesterner! Welcome!

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#103

Hey everyone, I’m Jordan. I’ve been a video gamer since I could hold a controller but expanded to tabletop games as I was entering middle school in the late 90s/early 2000s with Vampire, Rifts, D&D 3rd edition, and the like. The past 10 years I’ve been heavy into strategy boardgames, but I’ve been missing the narrative arcs and character moments of TTRPGs. So I’m starting to dive back in, focusing on one-shot and story-driven games. I love narrative-heavy experiences and original, atypical games that make you look at gaming in general from a different angle.

I’m a sometimes freelance editor that, when I’m not looking for gigs or stable work, can’t stop dabbling in my own endless, incomplete boardgame and RPG designs. A couple of my boardgame prototypes were finalists in design contests, but my RPGs will need a lot more work still. I’m trying to refocus on supplements and hacks to get my footing before going back to fully original designs. Baby steps.

I just relocated from Vancouver, BC to the metro St. Louis area, so I’m feeling a bit isolated without a vehicle. I’ll be looking to hop into some online games sometime soon. And I love playtesting new games and helping designers hone their creations. So if you’re ever looking for another playtester (or an editor!), I’d be eager to help.

Thanks for making such a welcoming community!

7 Likes
#104

Hi, I’m Marden (he/him), and I am an independent comic book artist from Brazil. I started playing TTRPGs in the mid- to late-90s (so, yes, I was essentially raised on World of Darkness games :bat: ). I left the hobby around 2001, briefly returned to it in 2007 and eventually rediscovered RPGs in 2014 with John Wick’s The Shotgun Diaries. From then on, my friends and I made it a point to give a new indie game a try every month or so.That year I guess we picked Dread first, then moved on to Fate Core, Apocalypse World 1E and Dungeon World, tweaking and hacking those engines whenever it seemed appropriate. Since then I’ve been studying indie games and developing my own in my spare time. Presently I’m translating and adapting some playbooks and ref material from The Veil for a homebrew version of that game. It will be my first time running it.

Apart from introducing myself, I just dropped by to express my appreciation for every bit of publicly available content from The Gauntlet I’ve come across so far. I’ve been binging my way through most of The Gauntlet’s podcasts during work. Life-giving stuff indeed.:hatching_chick: Also, that content (and the inclusive, truly inspiring gaming culture it embodies) is what motivated my signing up in the first place.

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#105

Welcome! You should look into the Gateway to the West convention for tabletop games. I hope to be there next year. I missed the registration for 2019. I am north of Chicago but mean to go next time. It is sponsored by my fave boardgame store… Miniaturemarket

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#106

Welcome to the community @ColinKloecker.

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#107

Welcome to the community @JMBosch.

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#108

Welcome to the Community, @marden.muller.

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#109

Welcome! I love how many creative types are on the Gauntlet! I wish I had any art skills!

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#110

Hello! I’m Jonathan (he/him), originally from Texas but I’ve hopped around quite a bit, and currently live in China (where I’m studying Japanese full time, funnily enough). I got my start with RPGs in high school with AD&D, then 3rd edition, then branched out frantically into other systems like Hackmaster, Feng Shui, Call of Cthulhu, and on and on. As I’ve moved around a lot as an adult, I’ve always struggled to get a stable group together. I really enjoy game systems though, and enjoy reading game rules and seeing how they do or don’t work for me. As an adult I’ve spent some time with Burning Wheel (which I love but don’t quite know how to DM for), Dungeon World (fun, but a little too streamlined for my tastes), and then another smattering of games that I read about but never get to run. I love TTRPGing and would love for it to be a bigger hobby than it is, I’ve just sort of struggled to make it happen. Aside from games I’m passionate about languages (I can speak Spanish, Mandarin, and am working on Japanese), food, hanging out, reading, and wuxia (I am now literate in Mandarin, and reading wuxia has been a ton of fun, even if I don’t have as much time to read it as I would like! I wonder how many HoW fans have come to it from the books, instead of from translated movies and tv shows?).

Hearts of Wulin is actually how I ended up at The Gauntlet. Honestly, I haven’t yet had the chance to fully explore the breadth of The Gauntlet’s offerings. I came to the Gauntlet by way of the Hearts of Wulin kickstarter – I’m a huge wuxia fan and a friend who is also into TTRPG’s sent me the link and I was instantly into the take HoW was taking. As such, I’ve largely just been lurking, getting a feel for the community. At this point, I’m hoping that when the HoW rules get finalized I can get a PBF going… as I’m in China, where discord and google hangouts are both banned, it’s a bit inconvenient to attend the gauntlet hangouts alas (I do have VPNs, but they generally aren’t stable enough for streaming intensive apps over long periods of time, in my experience). Still, I really like that the community really prioritizes, well, being thoughtful about the fact that it is a community. I like that inclusivity is a goal that is constantly being worked towards. Hopefully over time I can find my niche here :slight_smile: That said, I am always down to chat wuxia! And if you’re interested in the aforementioned PBF (well, not on this forum :stuck_out_tongue: as I know that’s against the rules, but you know what I mean!) of HoW when the rules get finalized, let me know!

13 Likes
#112

欢迎您！Welcome to the Gauntlet from another Mandarin-speaking newbie.

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#113

Welcome to the Forums @jco - glad you find it a welcoming space.

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#114

I’m looking for some advice. I don’t seem to be able to ever get into a game! Every time a game comes up in my time zone that I’m interested in, it fills within a few minutes, and with a waiting list too.

I signed up as an $8 supporter in the hope of improving things, and I’m getting notifications both from slack and from the hangouts forum here — but every time I pick up a notification, it’s already way too late.

One piece of advice I’ve been given a few times is to join waiting lists anyway and hope that dropouts happen. That’s all very well, but sadly my life is not such that I can keep multiple free slots in my calendar “just in case”, weeks in advance. of course if I’m sure of a game I will clear my schedule, but that opportunity hasn’t arisen yet. Especially when there are often several people ahead of me on the list too.

It seems like a combination of demand exceeding supply and my awkward time zone is making it very hard to ever get a game I’m interested in. Can anyone help, or let me know what I’m doing wrong? Or is this a common problem? Thanks in advance!

3 Likes
#115

By the way, I am genuinely asking for advice and not complaining. It’s totally possible that I am expecting too much or being too fussy — I’m happy to hear about it if so!

Also I have my eye on a fair few games in gauntletcon. But I have a horrible feeling that the same will happen there…

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#116

Hi @Toby, it might be worth starting a new topic to ask about this, since this is a topic for new users to introduce themselves.

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#117

Which timezone are you in @Toby?
Lowell has started an advice topic here:

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#118

Hi, I’m Miles. I started gaming in 1984 with Basic D&D when I was a mere 9 years old. It all started when my dad took me to see Red Sonja (the awful one with Bridgette Nielsen and Arnie), and then we swung by WaldenBooks at the mall, where I saw the red box Basic set with the Elmore artwork and was like “I must have this!”

In 1987, I discovered the Champions RPG and it instantly became my favorite system. I am a Forever GM, rarely playing (not really into playing), and have run an absurd number of system. Around 2012, after growing increasingly frustrated with Pathfinder (which I only ran because my players wanted me to) I finally put my foot down and now only run HERO System. It’s the only system I actually like.

I’m mostly here to lurk and read. I don’t really care for story games and haven’t ever enjoyed playing in one and absolutely hate running them (I find them mechanically dull, and creatively exhausting), but I find some of the ideas that come up interesting and applicable to how I run HERO, which is why I’m here. I doubt I will comment much.

9 Likes
#119

Welcome to the Forums, @MKAdams.

#120

Jason, I love my print copies of Freebooters on the Frontier. My library got a copy of Berlin this summer, and it keeps getting checked out as soon as it’s returned. I hadn’t realized the same person was responsible for both!

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#121

Hi all
I’m Avi. I live in Melbourne, Australia and have been listening to The Gauntlet and related podcasts since the interview with Epidiah Ravachol. I’m yet to play in a Gauntlet online game due to my family situation but am keen to get into some one-day. In my tabletop gaming group we play a mix of ‘indie’ and ‘trad’ games. I’m really pleased to be here with all you great people.
Thanks

13 Likes