Some of you might remember The Gauntlet Challenge from waaaay back in 2012. Well, I'm bringing it back, with new and improved instructions and rules that hopefully won't confuse the shit out of everyone this time.
A Gauntlet Challenge is a challenge that's a hybrid of pretty much every In-Game challenge you can imagine. Basically, the way it works is that you make a post here requesting that other people set a number of rules (number determined by the requester) for a playthrough in a game of your choice. Each person can give you up to two rules per a run, in order to get a variety of restrictions that will make your playthrough unique. Rules can consist of almost anything you can think of, from limiting Pokemon center visits, to restricting Pokemon access to forcing you to beat the champion with NFE pokemon. Once you have received the number of rules you asked for, you can start your Gauntlet.
There are two types of rules people can give you. There are Full Rules which are conditions that last the whole game and Event Rules which are rules tied to an area, trainer or certain interval in the story (ie between the first and second gym badges). Each person contributing to your gauntlet can give up to two rules of either type or one of both. Generally, when requesting a gauntlet you'll want to limit yourself to a maximum of 4 Full Rules, and a maximum of 10 Event Rules. More than that and things get exponentially harder and more complicated than most people would want. That being said, if you're feeling crazy, you can have as many Challenges in your run as you want.
1. Request posts requirements: When making a request post, you must specify which game you are playing, at what point your challenge ends, and how many of each type of rule (full and event) you want for your run.
2. On rejecting rules: You can list a set of personal restrictions on rules (including a difficulty level for your run) for people giving you rules, and reject rules that violate your restrictions. However these restrictions must be set BEFORE you begin accepting rules. You can also reject or request changes to rules that you feel fall well out of your requested difficulty, and rules that conflict with other rules you have already received. You can also reject rules that usually would fall within your difficulty restriction, but compound with another rule in such a way that it exceeds your difficulty restriction.
3. List accepted rules: You MUST keep track of rules that are given to you in your request post. Either quote the rules, link to them or copy paste them. This is so people can easily find the rules given to you already so they can avoid giving conflicting or compounding rules.
4. Rule limits: When giving out rules, you can only give out TWO rules per a run you're contributing to. Make sure that your rules (full rules in particular) are just ONE rule, not two or more related rules. See the definition paragraph for Full Rules below for examples if you need them. There are no limits on how many rules you can request. For gauntlets requesting large numbers of rules or for gauntlets that are filling very slowly, the runner can increase the limit from 2 to 3 rules if they want to.
5. No requesting Pokemon: That's what the Scramble Challange is for. Givers can give Full Rules that force the use of specific Pokemon though; runners just can't ask for these types of rules. If you want to do a hybrid scramble-gauntlet, you can do so by making posts on both threads, requesting rules here and Pokemon on the Scramble Challange thread.
6. Stay on Topic: Discussion in the thread is to be kept to giving, receiving and discussing gauntlets. Updates are allowed and encouraged, but be sure to stay on topic.
Bonus! Read the tips section: Not actually a rule, but it's highly recommended you read the tips section below, or at least the sections that relate to what you're doing on the thread. They'll help you to make better rules and get a better gauntlet for yourself. Gauntlets have a tendency to get out of hand in terms of difficulty very quickly, and reading the tips section will help you avoid biting off more than you can chew, or giving someone a bad rule.
This is a list of links to Gauntlets that still need challenges! Remember that these request posts might not be up to date, so be sure to check for new challenges that've been posted since they were last updated when giving your own.
Seraphinu's Gauntlet
Sunny004's Gauntlet
Here I'm going to go into some more specific info for those who still have questions about aspects of how the challenge works.
Tips:
Gauntlet set-up:
Giving Rules:
More to come later if needed!
Definitions:
EDIT: Changed terminology as I finally clued into the fact that using "challenge" to refer to what people were giving was confusing as all hell. "Challenges" have been replaced by "Rules", which I feel make a lot more intuitive sense.
PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT!
Seriosuly people, Gauntlets get HARD and get hard FAST. If you want your Gauntlet to be doable, only request a few Full Rules and make sure they're in your difficulty range before accepting them! 4 Full Rules is the absolute maximum you really should be considering, and even that many can be really, really hard! You CAN take more, but it will be the biggest in-game challenge of your Pokemon career.
Basic Info
Seriosuly people, Gauntlets get HARD and get hard FAST. If you want your Gauntlet to be doable, only request a few Full Rules and make sure they're in your difficulty range before accepting them! 4 Full Rules is the absolute maximum you really should be considering, and even that many can be really, really hard! You CAN take more, but it will be the biggest in-game challenge of your Pokemon career.
Basic Info
A Gauntlet Challenge is a challenge that's a hybrid of pretty much every In-Game challenge you can imagine. Basically, the way it works is that you make a post here requesting that other people set a number of rules (number determined by the requester) for a playthrough in a game of your choice. Each person can give you up to two rules per a run, in order to get a variety of restrictions that will make your playthrough unique. Rules can consist of almost anything you can think of, from limiting Pokemon center visits, to restricting Pokemon access to forcing you to beat the champion with NFE pokemon. Once you have received the number of rules you asked for, you can start your Gauntlet.
There are two types of rules people can give you. There are Full Rules which are conditions that last the whole game and Event Rules which are rules tied to an area, trainer or certain interval in the story (ie between the first and second gym badges). Each person contributing to your gauntlet can give up to two rules of either type or one of both. Generally, when requesting a gauntlet you'll want to limit yourself to a maximum of 4 Full Rules, and a maximum of 10 Event Rules. More than that and things get exponentially harder and more complicated than most people would want. That being said, if you're feeling crazy, you can have as many Challenges in your run as you want.
Thread Rules:
1. Request posts requirements: When making a request post, you must specify which game you are playing, at what point your challenge ends, and how many of each type of rule (full and event) you want for your run.
2. On rejecting rules: You can list a set of personal restrictions on rules (including a difficulty level for your run) for people giving you rules, and reject rules that violate your restrictions. However these restrictions must be set BEFORE you begin accepting rules. You can also reject or request changes to rules that you feel fall well out of your requested difficulty, and rules that conflict with other rules you have already received. You can also reject rules that usually would fall within your difficulty restriction, but compound with another rule in such a way that it exceeds your difficulty restriction.
3. List accepted rules: You MUST keep track of rules that are given to you in your request post. Either quote the rules, link to them or copy paste them. This is so people can easily find the rules given to you already so they can avoid giving conflicting or compounding rules.
4. Rule limits: When giving out rules, you can only give out TWO rules per a run you're contributing to. Make sure that your rules (full rules in particular) are just ONE rule, not two or more related rules. See the definition paragraph for Full Rules below for examples if you need them. There are no limits on how many rules you can request. For gauntlets requesting large numbers of rules or for gauntlets that are filling very slowly, the runner can increase the limit from 2 to 3 rules if they want to.
5. No requesting Pokemon: That's what the Scramble Challange is for. Givers can give Full Rules that force the use of specific Pokemon though; runners just can't ask for these types of rules. If you want to do a hybrid scramble-gauntlet, you can do so by making posts on both threads, requesting rules here and Pokemon on the Scramble Challange thread.
6. Stay on Topic: Discussion in the thread is to be kept to giving, receiving and discussing gauntlets. Updates are allowed and encouraged, but be sure to stay on topic.
Bonus! Read the tips section: Not actually a rule, but it's highly recommended you read the tips section below, or at least the sections that relate to what you're doing on the thread. They'll help you to make better rules and get a better gauntlet for yourself. Gauntlets have a tendency to get out of hand in terms of difficulty very quickly, and reading the tips section will help you avoid biting off more than you can chew, or giving someone a bad rule.
Unfilled Gauntlet List:
This is a list of links to Gauntlets that still need challenges! Remember that these request posts might not be up to date, so be sure to check for new challenges that've been posted since they were last updated when giving your own.
Seraphinu's Gauntlet
Sunny004's Gauntlet
Extra Info:
Here I'm going to go into some more specific info for those who still have questions about aspects of how the challenge works.
Tips:
Gauntlet set-up:
If you want your Gauntlet run to actually be entertaining and not a drag, be discerning in what rules you accept. When considering a rule, think about what it'd actually take to follow it, especially in conjunction with other rules you've already accepted. If it seems to you that it'd exceed your desired difficulty level or be more monotonous than you're wiling to handle, then don't be afraid to ask the rule giver to make changes, or reject it altogether if the rule can't be modified enough to fit. If you're not discerning you could very easily end up with a gauntlet run that you won't want to complete!
Full Rules are the primary contributors to the difficulty of a Gauntlet challenge. Even Full Rules that are low difficulty on their own can add up to a very high level of difficulty when combined with other Full Rules. Because of this, it is highly recommended not to exceed more than 4 Full Rules per a run. Even 4 can produce an exceptionally difficult run (just see Deinosaur 's Let's play thread for proof!)
Giving Rules:
When giving out a rule after other rules have already been given to the same run, it can be very easy to have them accidentally overlap with other rules in ways that either make them impossible or obscenely difficult. Before you give out a rule, always read the rules that have already been accepted for the run you're making them for, and think about how they'd interact with your rule. Think about what you'd do if you had that set of rules. If you don't do this, you might very well end up having your rule rejected due to unforeseen interactions.
It can be a bit fuzzy sometimes when a rule is just one rule, and when it's multiple rules. When it comes to Event Rules, we can make a pretty cut and dry definition; if it applies to only one area, trainer, or part of the story, it's one rule. It doesn't really matter how many stipulations on this part of the run there are, so long as its limited to a single event. Full Rules are a little bit trickier. Sometimes Full Rules can have extra stipulations attached without becoming multiple challenges. Usually this is to close loopholes, clarify ambiguous aspects of the rule, or to prevent problems from arising from the rule. However, if the extra bit could stand on its own as a rule by itself, you're probably giving two rules and not one. It can be a bit subjective some times, so the ultimate call on whether a rule counts as more than one rule comes down to the person receiving the rule.
More to come later if needed!
Definitions:
A gauntlet is used to refer to the runs put together in this thread. It's recommended you use "Gauntlet" to refer to these runs and not "challenge", in order to avoid confusion with the other terms used in this thread.
A "Runner" is someone who is doing a Gauntlet Challenge, as in they are doing a "run" of the game they are playing.
Someone who is giving out rules to a runner.
A Full Rule is a rule that applies to the entire play through. For example, the Nuzlocke condition where if a Pokemon faints, it's dead, would count as a Full Rule. Other examples would be things like not being allowed to use Pokemon centers, not being able to use STAB moves, not being able to use certain types of Pokemon, and so on. The trick when coming up with a Full Rules is making sure it's just ONE Full Rule, and not two. For example, a rule that says that you must only use STAB moves when facing Water-types is one rule, but a rule that says you must only use STAB moves against Water-types, and that you can't switch out when facing Water types is two related rules. Be aware of this so you don't break the two challenges per a run rule!
An Event Rule is a challenge that is temporary. You can think of them like hurdles in a race. They're usually centered around a specific battle or area. For example, a rule that has you battle Lance without using any Ice-type moves is an event rule. Event rules can be also be tied to an area (ex. don't use any healing items or leave to go to a Pokemon center when going through Victory road), or to a period in the game (ex. don't use a Pokemon center between the 3rd and 4th badges). Event rules can be more complex than Full Rules without becoming multiple challenges, but try not to make them overly complex nonetheless.
EDIT: Changed terminology as I finally clued into the fact that using "challenge" to refer to what people were giving was confusing as all hell. "Challenges" have been replaced by "Rules", which I feel make a lot more intuitive sense.
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