I also don't like to watch others play TTRPGs. I'd rather be playing myself. If I want to support a creator doing a live play, I hit the "like" button & leave it playing while I do other things. That said, my son & I have been recording & publishing our AD&D Greyhawk campaign. We're just trying to have fun, not trying to build a brand, so we don't edit out the mistakes & errors. I would not do it if I was trying to entertain anyone. That wouldn't be fun for anyone. Have fun!
I definitely agree with your premise and arguments. Unless a community is cultivated to watch an AP series early, often, and fully plus engage with it via likes and comments, the length and content of AP videos will lead to viewer behavior that flags them for UA-cam as less desirable. They get buried in search and in the feed. Thanks for the kind words~
Agreed about the hobby being for the players, not an audience, but there are those people who are just naturally funny and charismatic, and good improve actors. There are Actual Play shows that are normal RPGs without models or terrain, it's all theater of the mind, and they just rely on the quality of the people involved and the power of editing to keep it entertaining. Mystery Quest comes to mind here. They do one-shots broken up into a few episodes, and always run pre-made modules with theater of the mind. They also make their characters at the beginning and do a post-game chat right after, but only Patrons see those. The characters aren't planned out in conjunction with the story, it's organic. They're all game Twitch streamers and rotate the players each game, so they act a lot more naturally without being boring. Their dark ironic humor is good, and 99% of their games are horror-comedy. (Maybe it's because they're all English.) Their Mork Borg runs in particular are hilarious, in part because they're trying to make each other squirm and laugh, and not just performing for the cameras. They do heavily favor rules-light systems though, probably in part because it helps with the Actual Play format. Like what Trevor Duvall's said about his own solo campaigns. That's different from something like Critical Role, where their episodes have a lot of investment and so they need to make use of what they made. They might not ever get as popular as CR got at its peak, but I've seen them get over 100k views. Hard to take off with modern algorithmically driven UA-cam, but it would've built an audience in the old days when subscribers mattered.
@@TempvsMortis the algorithm is every UA-camrs friend. Subscribers really matter because if a lot of your regular viewers watch a video early on it signals to UA-cam to show the video more. Lots of myths about how it works, UA-cam wants people to watch your videos!
3D6 Down the Line is a great you tube channel. Weekly posts of actual OSR gameplay that is genuine and entertaining, currently at Session 91 of a Ardun Vul mega dungeon campaign. John the DM has a great set of old school players who know how to roleplay and he also posts weekly recap videos where he and his players discuss topics that occurred in that week's session. Definitely a channel to check out.
I was just about to wave the 3D6 DTL flag as well. They're great. A true fly on the wall experience of an old school game. Together with Me Myself and Die. In the past I tried CR, but the cringe and self indulgence just does my head in.
Jumping in to pile on to a 3d6 DTL is good actual play that represents an actual play that is by the books and interesting. Though I also agree with most of the points brought up in the stream as well. The game you have at home with the boys is something that is yours and not for the audience, and that's a beautiful thing and why I still am in the hobby decades on.
The metaphor I've always heard is that TTRPGs are like fishing. Fishing is fun to actually do, but nobody wants to watch a 2 hour livestream of someone on a boat with a fishing pole. You may have a fun fishing story to tell in the office on monday, but just like D&D it's not a spectator sport. If you wanted to make your actual play content interesting for an audience, I could see some form of telling the story of what happened in game afterward. Maybe a little animated narrative. Or something similar to the way sportscasters will give a play by play afterwards with footage from the game in the background.
I really enjoy your live stream discussions about Roleplaying, I am one of those Grumpy old Grey Beards who looks at the state of Roleplaying and the BDSM lines and veils being inserted into it by blue haired weirdos and finds it so disheartening. I am especially into your Vampire the Masquerade content as a long-time Avid player of White Wolfs World of Darkness, I'd love some Mage Content and maybe Wraith as well since those were my two favorites from the WOD but you both hit VTM spot on in the feel and how it should be played. Well done gentlemen, really enjoying the channel! Keep up the great work!
As someone who loves watching streams I love "actual play" I can watch people play games all day. You do need a weird middle ground of playing the game and it being audio drama. Most important is the players need to look like they're having fun, I think the game matters too
You guys should check out time for chaos, and get in the trunk from the glass Cannon podcast. Bunch of hilarious aged theater kids who nail it on the improv. Only enjoyable actual play channel I've seen that feels like a real game.
have you seen the few episodes of SoloDark made by Kelsey Dionne on her channel The Arcane Library? Also, Locals and Rumble are banned in France and Brazil, just letting you know. I can't wait for the video coming up tomorrow!!!
I like APs, but I don't like a) PCs talking without purpose, I.e. not about a decision they face, b) players describing how their characters feel, instead of showing it through play, c) the GM lore dumping, talking too long, or laying out scenarios with no choices.
58:02 you know i thought how to make it that there is minimal switch from roleplaying to mechnical interface and it hit, you take action while roleplaying and that allows you to use your dice pool. in other terms youre character has a certain potential denoted by his dice pool and faculties and when you roleplay you decide which of those faculties are engaged and how, rolling the dice determines how much of your potential was actualized. the dice are your muscles and brain in that sense. for a game to be a roleplaying game it needs to be such that hte only way to play it is by roleplaying. thats when the rift between roleplaying and interface i'll share more when its ready
My take, I really enjoyed your cyberpunk actual plays, at least in terms of the style and the way your whole group approached their characters/npcs, despite not really being a fan of the genre. For the older ring of fire stuff, I felt that some of the players could draw out some of the stuff their characters said for an absurd duration like "going on and on" which feels like the sort of thing that would be as annoying in-game as it would be to watch, but the general premise and as long as players weren't doing that, was engaging and interesting. My favorite actual plays were those done by the Absolute Tabletop guys - Matt Click, Tim and James Kearny, and Michael Barker - their Provokers campaign made me realize that dnd doesn't just have to be "my character is *A Fighter* (TM) and I'm *An Adventurer* (TM) and I'm here to... uh... fight monsters and save people, I guess! Also, lol I seduce the dragon". The guy introduced his character is dirt-poor, clearly down on his luck, shaving in a tavern, just having the humility to allow your character to be in a bad situation from the start and clearly have a lot of history behind him. Then their Winds of Sur Salin and Crux games got me to see how intense the GM's narration can get and how he can really immerse the players. They're worth checking out I'd say and the result you get from that level of RP is awesome, both to play in and to watch. As someone who watched a lot of Critical Role and a bit of interviews of how they approach things, it seems to me that their primary focus is playing their characters rather than making things engaging for the audience, although they did amp that up a bit after the first few episodes of campaign 1. For instance, characters will often do absurd/stupid/damaging things because they misunderstood a spell, often causing annoying/boring/anticlimactic stuff to happen. I stopped watching halfway through campaign 2 so maybe they changed their approach since then. They said that they focus more on the audience during their live in-person shows because people paid to be there. I wonder if it's a sort of subconscious thing that goes on with them being voice actors, where they are always performing a bit just by virtue of knowing the cameras are on.
It's quite the challenge. Almost no one seems to really have their finger on exactly what it is they are trying to do with such an endeavor. Still no real established or agreed on meaning for what is "a GOOD live play", and even the ones seen as successful can have aspects of it recognized as good or impressive but consensus is usually of the sort along the lines of "that one wasn't bad". Best live plays I've seen have been relatively short and unassuming in terms of production while unburdened by administration, rules adjudication, deliberation, and usually by confusion or disagreement.
I really wonder how well Me Myself and Die would work if it had a group of players and a DM. Would Tre Devall's talent and energy carry it? Or would the required production value replace the purpose and authenticity?
If he carried it by production value instead of authentic representation of gaming... would it actually just prove the same point that Mercer's results did?
I think audience participation may be a key. Engage the audience with some Gamism... make them want to accomplish something THROUGH what the players are doing in the game. Make the players of the characters in the game the show, rather than the production or even the game, and have learning the game or cool character/adventure ideas be the bonus. Inform the audience ahead of time about things which the players don't know, and earn the trust needed for the entire thing not to be faked. You could go wide with this, too. Learn from the ideas of various definitions of various -steins, and have LOTS of players, all with objectives to compete to accomplish their faction's narrative. Include as much of the entire social network as can be managed. Build a hierarchical control structure to keep it in line if you must.
I struggle with long format, preferring 5-25 minute optimally. Longer stuff (audio or video) gets the playback speed ticked up to 1.5x, or I just skip it. I like to get to the point, and then move on to the next point, so movies and TV shows hit differently. Multi-segment long format can also be more palpable to me. I'll watch Actual Plays if I'm learning the system, or discovering more roleplay concepts/playstyles. Otherwise, I end up just skipping these too. I want to play, not spectate. For my own RPG preferences, 3 hours is my ideal session length. 4 is pushing it, and anything above gets increasingly tiring.
32:33 is Nick bragging or should he see a doctor? Stoked to watch your AP tomorrow. Also, I'm kind of biased, but there aren't many cyberpunk /hard-scifi /early space exploration actual plays out there..
I mostly watch Actual Plays when I am learning a new system and want to see how people use it in action, but I almost always turn them off after just a short time. Finding ones that are well made are tough, though Me, Myself, and Die is great and there is a Band of Blades campaign with the creator as GM that I really liked. Part of what makes it so hard is that the goals of 1: Teach the game 2: Be and entertainment product and 3: Be an example of Actually Playing instead of working to a predetermined script are all sort of in tension with each other and getting a good balance is hard. Especially since sometimes you have good group for actually playing with friends but one of them has an annoying voice or whatever and that ruins it as an entertainment product. The Glass Cannon AP for Traveller is pretty cool and has people I think are great on it, but one of the players has a thick New Jersey accent which is like nails on a chalkboard. She isn't a bad player or anything and its not her fault, but it ruins that AP for me as an entertainment product I want to listen to for hours at a time.
Been playing ttrpgs for about 45 years now, (eternal DM) and I can't do 5 minutes of an "ActualPlay" without turning it off and going and writing/prepping something better. My wife has never, and I doubt will ever, take part in a ttrpg, she couldn't have less interest in it if someone paid her to... but she will binge watch Critical Role like its crack. I can't watch it... it turns my stomach... It's a completely different thing to her than it is to me.
The only one I've ever been able to stand is Magistratum Mundanis put out by Tex of the Black Pants Legion, and even then there's two caveats. 1. I'm sure there's at least some editing instead of just a straight recording. 2. They play a ttrpg rule set I'm wholly unfamiliar with.
Thought of one more, it's edited to be a podcast and then dual posted to UA-cam. Also, it was played to be enjoyed by the players and recorded, and posted, as an archive more than to entertain.
Actual plays more often than not reveal the vile legacy of Joss Whedon upon nerd/geek culture. Snark and quips are substituted for wit and makes everything cringe. If you think that D&D is bad, try dealing with the Pathfinder 2e community. Never again.
![Method Writing: The First Four Concepts - Jack Grapes [FULL INTERVIEW]](/img/n.gif)
Hanging out with your friends and being in FRIENDS are two different things
I also don't like to watch others play TTRPGs. I'd rather be playing myself. If I want to support a creator doing a live play, I hit the "like" button & leave it playing while I do other things.
That said, my son & I have been recording & publishing our AD&D Greyhawk campaign. We're just trying to have fun, not trying to build a brand, so we don't edit out the mistakes & errors. I would not do it if I was trying to entertain anyone. That wouldn't be fun for anyone. Have fun!
The only live play worth watching is while Shonner reacts to live plays.
I definitely agree with your premise and arguments. Unless a community is cultivated to watch an AP series early, often, and fully plus engage with it via likes and comments, the length and content of AP videos will lead to viewer behavior that flags them for UA-cam as less desirable. They get buried in search and in the feed.
Thanks for the kind words~
Can't believe I missed it AGAIN! At least there's the VOD
Matthew Pickard knocked it out of the park with the jokes on this one
Agreed about the hobby being for the players, not an audience, but there are those people who are just naturally funny and charismatic, and good improve actors. There are Actual Play shows that are normal RPGs without models or terrain, it's all theater of the mind, and they just rely on the quality of the people involved and the power of editing to keep it entertaining.
Mystery Quest comes to mind here. They do one-shots broken up into a few episodes, and always run pre-made modules with theater of the mind. They also make their characters at the beginning and do a post-game chat right after, but only Patrons see those. The characters aren't planned out in conjunction with the story, it's organic. They're all game Twitch streamers and rotate the players each game, so they act a lot more naturally without being boring. Their dark ironic humor is good, and 99% of their games are horror-comedy. (Maybe it's because they're all English.)
Their Mork Borg runs in particular are hilarious, in part because they're trying to make each other squirm and laugh, and not just performing for the cameras. They do heavily favor rules-light systems though, probably in part because it helps with the Actual Play format. Like what Trevor Duvall's said about his own solo campaigns.
That's different from something like Critical Role, where their episodes have a lot of investment and so they need to make use of what they made. They might not ever get as popular as CR got at its peak, but I've seen them get over 100k views. Hard to take off with modern algorithmically driven UA-cam, but it would've built an audience in the old days when subscribers mattered.
@@TempvsMortis the algorithm is every UA-camrs friend. Subscribers really matter because if a lot of your regular viewers watch a video early on it signals to UA-cam to show the video more. Lots of myths about how it works, UA-cam wants people to watch your videos!
3D6 Down the Line is a great you tube channel. Weekly posts of actual OSR gameplay that is genuine and entertaining, currently at Session 91 of a Ardun Vul mega dungeon campaign. John the DM has a great set of old school players who know how to roleplay and he also posts weekly recap videos where he and his players discuss topics that occurred in that week's session. Definitely a channel to check out.
I was just about to wave the 3D6 DTL flag as well. They're great. A true fly on the wall experience of an old school game. Together with Me Myself and Die. In the past I tried CR, but the cringe and self indulgence just does my head in.
@@StainlessBottle just subbed 3d6dtl
3d6DtL definitely a favorite.
Jumping in to pile on to a 3d6 DTL is good actual play that represents an actual play that is by the books and interesting. Though I also agree with most of the points brought up in the stream as well. The game you have at home with the boys is something that is yours and not for the audience, and that's a beautiful thing and why I still am in the hobby decades on.
I like to watch the Glass cannon network. It’s comedy and definetly not squeaky clean. Nothing like a real table though.
I tried watching Critical Roll once. I couldn't do it. There's was way too much 'theater kid' energy.
As a reformed theatre kid, I understand.
The metaphor I've always heard is that TTRPGs are like fishing. Fishing is fun to actually do, but nobody wants to watch a 2 hour livestream of someone on a boat with a fishing pole. You may have a fun fishing story to tell in the office on monday, but just like D&D it's not a spectator sport.
If you wanted to make your actual play content interesting for an audience, I could see some form of telling the story of what happened in game afterward. Maybe a little animated narrative. Or something similar to the way sportscasters will give a play by play afterwards with footage from the game in the background.
I really enjoy your live stream discussions about Roleplaying, I am one of those Grumpy old Grey Beards who looks at the state of Roleplaying and the BDSM lines and veils being inserted into it by blue haired weirdos and finds it so disheartening. I am especially into your Vampire the Masquerade content as a long-time Avid player of White Wolfs World of Darkness, I'd love some Mage Content and maybe Wraith as well since those were my two favorites from the WOD but you both hit VTM spot on in the feel and how it should be played. Well done gentlemen, really enjoying the channel! Keep up the great work!
XP to level 3 does heavily edited plays now, it's so much better imo. The only one I watch
I ran a Savage Worlds AP for Geeks & Gamers with a live audience. Great time, but the audience was also interactive with what was happening.
Actual play is fun to watch
@@greyedgamer I hope you like ours
As someone who loves watching streams I love "actual play" I can watch people play games all day.
You do need a weird middle ground of playing the game and it being audio drama. Most important is the players need to look like they're having fun, I think the game matters too
You guys should check out time for chaos, and get in the trunk from the glass Cannon podcast. Bunch of hilarious aged theater kids who nail it on the improv. Only enjoyable actual play channel I've seen that feels like a real game.
In regards to Runehammer being difficult to watch, he did use to call his videos 'Drunkens and Dragons' so that might be a factor. Just saying.
have you seen the few episodes of SoloDark made by Kelsey Dionne on her channel The Arcane Library?
Also, Locals and Rumble are banned in France and Brazil, just letting you know.
I can't wait for the video coming up tomorrow!!!
I like APs, but I don't like a) PCs talking without purpose, I.e. not about a decision they face, b) players describing how their characters feel, instead of showing it through play, c) the GM lore dumping, talking too long, or laying out scenarios with no choices.
58:02
you know i thought how to make it that there is minimal switch from roleplaying to mechnical interface and it hit, you take action while roleplaying and that allows you to use your dice pool. in other terms youre character has a certain potential denoted by his dice pool and faculties and when you roleplay you decide which of those faculties are engaged and how, rolling the dice determines how much of your potential was actualized. the dice are your muscles and brain in that sense.
for a game to be a roleplaying game it needs to be such that hte only way to play it is by roleplaying. thats when the rift between roleplaying and interface
i'll share more when its ready
Harmonquest was fun to watch, cause it was backed with animations of what was happening.
My take, I really enjoyed your cyberpunk actual plays, at least in terms of the style and the way your whole group approached their characters/npcs, despite not really being a fan of the genre. For the older ring of fire stuff, I felt that some of the players could draw out some of the stuff their characters said for an absurd duration like "going on and on" which feels like the sort of thing that would be as annoying in-game as it would be to watch, but the general premise and as long as players weren't doing that, was engaging and interesting.
My favorite actual plays were those done by the Absolute Tabletop guys - Matt Click, Tim and James Kearny, and Michael Barker - their Provokers campaign made me realize that dnd doesn't just have to be "my character is *A Fighter* (TM) and I'm *An Adventurer* (TM) and I'm here to... uh... fight monsters and save people, I guess! Also, lol I seduce the dragon". The guy introduced his character is dirt-poor, clearly down on his luck, shaving in a tavern, just having the humility to allow your character to be in a bad situation from the start and clearly have a lot of history behind him. Then their Winds of Sur Salin and Crux games got me to see how intense the GM's narration can get and how he can really immerse the players. They're worth checking out I'd say and the result you get from that level of RP is awesome, both to play in and to watch.
As someone who watched a lot of Critical Role and a bit of interviews of how they approach things, it seems to me that their primary focus is playing their characters rather than making things engaging for the audience, although they did amp that up a bit after the first few episodes of campaign 1. For instance, characters will often do absurd/stupid/damaging things because they misunderstood a spell, often causing annoying/boring/anticlimactic stuff to happen. I stopped watching halfway through campaign 2 so maybe they changed their approach since then. They said that they focus more on the audience during their live in-person shows because people paid to be there. I wonder if it's a sort of subconscious thing that goes on with them being voice actors, where they are always performing a bit just by virtue of knowing the cameras are on.
It's quite the challenge. Almost no one seems to really have their finger on exactly what it is they are trying to do with such an endeavor. Still no real established or agreed on meaning for what is "a GOOD live play", and even the ones seen as successful can have aspects of it recognized as good or impressive but consensus is usually of the sort along the lines of "that one wasn't bad".
Best live plays I've seen have been relatively short and unassuming in terms of production while unburdened by administration, rules adjudication, deliberation, and usually by confusion or disagreement.
$773 more until BLG makes pregenerated characters for Cults of Zahak 👀
A real BROSR Bro never needs an AP show, a real BROSR Bro blogs receipts!
@@dundermoose I will never do it! The time trade off is not worth it!
@@blacklodgegames ha! Fair enough. I just invite everyone on to talk about what happened for themselves.
I really wonder how well Me Myself and Die would work if it had a group of players and a DM.
Would Tre Devall's talent and energy carry it? Or would the required production value replace the purpose and authenticity?
@@CantRIP9389 watch his blade runner series! He's got players at the table with him and it's great
If he carried it by production value instead of authentic representation of gaming... would it actually just prove the same point that Mercer's results did?
I think audience participation may be a key. Engage the audience with some Gamism... make them want to accomplish something THROUGH what the players are doing in the game. Make the players of the characters in the game the show, rather than the production or even the game, and have learning the game or cool character/adventure ideas be the bonus. Inform the audience ahead of time about things which the players don't know, and earn the trust needed for the entire thing not to be faked.
You could go wide with this, too. Learn from the ideas of various definitions of various -steins, and have LOTS of players, all with objectives to compete to accomplish their faction's narrative. Include as much of the entire social network as can be managed. Build a hierarchical control structure to keep it in line if you must.
I struggle with long format, preferring 5-25 minute optimally. Longer stuff (audio or video) gets the playback speed ticked up to 1.5x, or I just skip it.
I like to get to the point, and then move on to the next point, so movies and TV shows hit differently. Multi-segment long format can also be more palpable to me.
I'll watch Actual Plays if I'm learning the system, or discovering more roleplay concepts/playstyles. Otherwise, I end up just skipping these too. I want to play, not spectate.
For my own RPG preferences, 3 hours is my ideal session length. 4 is pushing it, and anything above gets increasingly tiring.
32:33 is Nick bragging or should he see a doctor?
Stoked to watch your AP tomorrow. Also, I'm kind of biased, but there aren't many cyberpunk /hard-scifi /early space exploration actual plays out there..
I mostly watch Actual Plays when I am learning a new system and want to see how people use it in action, but I almost always turn them off after just a short time. Finding ones that are well made are tough, though Me, Myself, and Die is great and there is a Band of Blades campaign with the creator as GM that I really liked.
Part of what makes it so hard is that the goals of 1: Teach the game 2: Be and entertainment product and 3: Be an example of Actually Playing instead of working to a predetermined script are all sort of in tension with each other and getting a good balance is hard. Especially since sometimes you have good group for actually playing with friends but one of them has an annoying voice or whatever and that ruins it as an entertainment product. The Glass Cannon AP for Traveller is pretty cool and has people I think are great on it, but one of the players has a thick New Jersey accent which is like nails on a chalkboard. She isn't a bad player or anything and its not her fault, but it ruins that AP for me as an entertainment product I want to listen to for hours at a time.
will check glass cannon. Our AP just went live on the channel too :)
Been playing ttrpgs for about 45 years now, (eternal DM) and I can't do 5 minutes of an "ActualPlay" without turning it off and going and writing/prepping something better.
My wife has never, and I doubt will ever, take part in a ttrpg, she couldn't have less interest in it if someone paid her to... but she will binge watch Critical Role like its crack.
I can't watch it... it turns my stomach...
It's a completely different thing to her than it is to me.
The only one I've ever been able to stand is Magistratum Mundanis put out by Tex of the Black Pants Legion, and even then there's two caveats. 1. I'm sure there's at least some editing instead of just a straight recording. 2. They play a ttrpg rule set I'm wholly unfamiliar with.
Thought of one more, it's edited to be a podcast and then dual posted to UA-cam. Also, it was played to be enjoyed by the players and recorded, and posted, as an archive more than to entertain.
I like watching gamers game, not actors game.
@@DirtyDwarf-u1r two very different types of content for very different audiences
TTRPGs are not a spectator sport
They're full contact, immersive and engaging experiences! (ideally!)
Actual plays more often than not reveal the vile legacy of Joss Whedon upon nerd/geek culture. Snark and quips are substituted for wit and makes everything cringe. If you think that D&D is bad, try dealing with the Pathfinder 2e community. Never again.
@@venwin25 the actual play we discuss in this stream is now live on the channel. Let us know if we succeeded