Yesterday while struggling with the Prestige mode of the Gauntlet, we stumbled across an innovative strategy to reduce chat overlap between the two runners without having to split the party and lose the fun of all playing together. What was our terrific, foolproof strategy, you ask? Simple: Character Voices!

The person running opposite me on the first round choose to go with the voice of animated high schooler Daria Morgendorffer, while I decided to go with famed pirate Black Jack Lee.

This worked pretty well the first few attempts. A monotone “Chalice orb is at the top... I guess.” was easy to distinguish from a high seas “Arrr! Dogs, middle they be!”

Through minor mistakes and learning the new rules, we ended up having to do the first round several times. Unfortunately, our strategy started to break down as we began to get a little too in character.

While highly in character, “<Sigh> It never would have worked. I mean, unless you didn’t shoot Sun, Top. Or something.” proved less helpful to the teams outside even though the tone and made it easy to distinguish.

Likewise, “Over waves of blood sails the Ivory Web, filling all hearts with fear and dread. Though time has passed since I've ravaged these seas, no one will have what is Black Jack Lee's! Because my Axes, they be Below the horizon!” was instantly distinct from the other runner, but the pirate-y accent itself began to get a little hard to understand.

So, maybe our strategy wasn’t as foolproof as we first thought, but with some minor tweaks we think it could work great. You could try:

- Characters are who naturally pair together, like Dexter and Dee Dee from Dexter’s Laboratory, He Man and Skeletor from He Man and the Masters of the Universe, or T-Bone and Razor from SWAT Katz: The Radical Squadron. That way you could play off what the other person said and incorporate it into your own call out.
- Use a character who speaks in a very high voice and another who speaks in a very low voice.
- Pick characters who are all about doing the job right (like Captain America) or characters who have no nonsense about them (like Data).

Anyway, we got real close with this strategy, so I hope it proves useful for some of you out there!