Are RPGs Watchable?

[SigmaOne]

In my opinion, RPGs absolutely are watchable.

I've watched many hours of RPGs on Youtube, and listened to many hours of podcasts. They're great; I enjoy them as much as watching whatever I watch on Youtube. The ratio of good to bad is about the same for general media, though: that is, much of it is totally unwatchable. A handful of people with poor recording devices and skills, and who aren't very good or interesting roleplayers (or don't have the more general "entertainment" or "personality" skills to support them) are just going to be bad. These people would make pretty bad videos no matter what they were doing, and that has little to do with roleplaying. People with poor editing skills or who simply aren't on top of things to keep the game moving forward are also a major problem. But the AI folks are outstanding, and they're not actors --- just entertaining and generally good communicators. Harmontown is strictly amazing, especially Spencer Crittenden's style of DMing a live game. The Drunks and Dragons folks put a lot of work into it, do good editing, and are in general just fun folks to listen to. Most recently, I've watched hours of Rollplay R&D Dungeonworld; it was expertly DMed and overall a tight productions. Very enjoyable and I'm looking forward to watching more.

No topic or activity is unwatchable, because there are always many many people who love that activity but aren't able to be as directly involved in it as they'd like, and there are always at least some people who will do a good job producing it. There is evidence for this in that some of the more popular "broadcasts" are receiving support from their watchers; Drunks and Dragons had enough fans to organize their own convention this year.

Right now (and for the past two or so years) a good live-play RP video or podcasts is one of my first choices in entertainment.

 

[SigmaOne]

What's the game and who are the players?

Tabletop killed at Fiasco. One of their best sessions ever. But:

1: That was an entertaining group that knew how to play to the camera. Actors and screenwriters. Playing to the audience. (Compare with the WotC videos)
2: That's a limited duration game. In Fiasco you're done in only an hour or two. In most modern Storygames it's half a dozen hours. In D&D a dungeon can take half a dozen sessions and a campaign years.

Fix 1 and 2 and yes, it's about as worth watching as Improv Drama. Without? Ehhh.

I really enjoyed their Dragon Age playthrough, too.

 

[Random Bystander]

In my opinion, RPGs absolutely are watchable.

I've watched many hours of RPGs on Youtube, and listened to many hours of podcasts. They're great; I enjoy them as much as watching whatever I watch on Youtube. The ratio of good to bad is about the same for general media, though: that is, much of it is totally unwatchable. A handful of people with poor recording devices and skills, and who aren't very good or interesting roleplayers (or don't have the more general "entertainment" or "personality" skills to support them) are just going to be bad. These people would make pretty bad videos no matter what they were doing, and that has little to do with roleplaying. People with poor editing skills or who simply aren't on top of things to keep the game moving forward are also a major problem. But the AI folks are outstanding, and they're not actors --- just entertaining and generally good communicators. Harmontown is strictly amazing, especially Spencer Crittenden's style of DMing a live game. The Drunks and Dragons folks put a lot of work into it, do good editing, and are in general just fun folks to listen to. Most recently, I've watched hours of Rollplay R&D Dungeonworld; it was expertly DMed and overall a tight productions. Very enjoyable and I'm looking forward to watching more.

No topic or activity is unwatchable, because there are always many many people who love that activity but aren't able to be as directly involved in it as they'd like, and there are always at least some people who will do a good job producing it. There is evidence for this in that some of the more popular "broadcasts" are receiving support from their watchers; Drunks and Dragons had enough fans to organize their own convention this year.

Right now (and for the past two or so years) a good live-play RP video or podcasts is one of my first choices in entertainment.

I could be wrong. Could you link to each of those groups? Google was not always helpful.

 

[SigmaOne]

I could be wrong. Could you link to each of those groups? Google was not always helpful.

The Drunks and Dragons podcast is done by the folks at Geekly Inc. Their main RPG play is D&D, which started with 4e, and (I think) they're going to move to 5e, but they do a wide variety of other games including Durance, Firefly (using Fate Core), Fiasco, Gamma World and Shadowrun.

The Harmontown D&D segments appear as short (15-25 minute) portions of the larger Harmontown podcast. I like the podcast okay, but the D&D is for me the best part, and you can find a Youtube playlist with only those segments with this link.

The Rollplay R&D folks have a variety of Youtube videos posted, including Dungeon World, Numenera, and Apocalypse World. You can find a playlist with this link.

Obviously your mileage was variable. I was interpreting the original question as the (somewhat objective) "is there a critical mass of people who want to watch RPGs played", to which I think the answer is simply "YES". Here the vagueness of critical mass lets me get away with a bit, I acknowledge. But the Rollplay R&D Dungeonworld videos seem to consistently get about 20,000 views. The TableTop Dragon Age video has nearly a million views; and the fact that the TableTop Season 3 Indiegogo managed to fund their RPG stretch goal is saying something, too.

Now, of course there will be scads of people (perhaps a majority) for whom the question "are RPGs watchable to you?" will have the answer "absolutely not." So, mileage varies.

 

[Random Bystander]

The Drunks and Dragons podcast is done by the folks at Geekly Inc. Their main RPG play is D&D, which started with 4e, and (I think) they're going to move to 5e, but they do a wide variety of other games including Durance, Firefly (using Fate Core), Fiasco, Gamma World and Shadowrun.

The Harmontown D&D segments appear as short (15-25 minute) portions of the larger Harmontown podcast. I like the podcast okay, but the D&D is for me the best part, and you can find a Youtube playlist with only those segments with this link.

The Rollplay R&D folks have a variety of Youtube videos posted, including Dungeon World, Numenera, and Apocalypse World. You can find a playlist with this link.

Obviously your mileage was variable. I was interpreting the original question as the (somewhat objective) "is there a critical mass of people who want to watch RPGs played", to which I think the answer is simply "YES". Here the vagueness of critical mass lets me get away with a bit, I acknowledge. But the Rollplay R&D Dungeonworld videos seem to consistently get about 20,000 views. The TableTop Dragon Age video has nearly a million views; and the fact that the TableTop Season 3 Indiegogo managed to fund their RPG stretch goal is saying something, too.

Now, of course there will be scads of people (perhaps a majority) for whom the question "are RPGs watchable to you?" will have the answer "absolutely not." So, mileage varies.

Thank you for the links; unfortunately, my mileage varied.

 

[Grakarg]

While not videos, I've found the following audio podcasts to be very entertaining and I highly recommend them

The Adventure Zone (a laugh out loud funny podcast as 3 brothers and their Dad learn 5e. I lost it multiple times and had trouble breathing by the end of episode 4. )

Gamerstable (they do general RPG discussion, and have several actual play sessions converted into 'radio drama style', Savage Worlds, Call of Cthulhu, Fate)

 

[Samloyal23]

The gulf of ignorance that separates non-gamers from our hobby is wider than the Deep Ethereal, anything we do to show the Mundanes what we actually do will help shrink that void. Plus, I think it is good to actually see how others play a game to broaden our own perspectives...

 

[cavalier973]

The only roleplaying session besides the AI Podcasts/Videos that I listened to more than once was a Dungeon World game podcast called "The Mad King". There were two sessions, and the DM roleplayed his NPCs as well as or even better than his players.

The gist of the story was that the king of a tribe that lived in a swampy wilderness wanted to declare a war against the trees because "the trees were mocking him". Based on the Dungeon World rules, the PCs found out that the one girl was the king's daughter, and the other lady was the king's mother-in-law during the first few minutes of play.

Unfortunately, it's no longer on Youtube.

 

[Random Bystander]

The gulf of ignorance that separates non-gamers from our hobby is wider than the Deep Ethereal, anything we do to show the Mundanes what we actually do will help shrink that void. Plus, I think it is good to actually see how others play a game to broaden our own perspectives...

You could say the same thing about the gulf between people who have tried cheese and sweet pickle sandwiches, and people who have not. If someone can understand improv theatre and board games, it's not too hard to explain tabletop RPGs.

 

[Samloyal23]

You could say the same thing about the gulf between people who have tried cheese and sweet pickle sandwiches, and people who have not. If someone can understand improv theatre and board games, it's not too hard to explain tabletop RPGs.

I have not heard of anyone being accused of worshiping Satan because they eat cheese and sweet pickle sandwiches. But nothing would surprise me these days...