It's interesting that you mention this. My own experience has been that only certain game styles are watchable--the DM needs to keep up tension by continuously spoon-feeding story elements, the setup must demonstrate player agency to the audience, and the players must use that agency and the continual flow of story elements to create many risky irreversible events.
I sure hope not. Acting like a total douche, not just towards all the NPCs you meet but also your fellow PCs, isn't cool at all. What's his DMing style like? (I've never watched any of that group's other videos.)
I'm interested enough in the group that I've started watching their regular game. It's all too easy to sit in judgement of someone else's DM'ing, but I think it would be fair to say that the start of the Phandelver adventure did not play to his strengths, while things picked up significantly in town when he was able to flex his NPC roleplaying muscles. He is struggling with some absurd PC's though (e.g. a bard who specifically cannot sing or play an instrument, which tempted the DM into introducing a silly rule about his magic only working 50% of the time), and a lot of inter-party conflict. It's very tempting to see his PC in the Chris Perkins session partly as revenge for what the group is putting him through!
Likewise. There's nothing out there that I know of, that isn't either a promotion or a convention with celebrity players.
Hmm. I still feel like he ought to know better. I only listened to about an hour of the game, and for much of it, I was sitting there wishing he'd just stop being an ass and let everyone else get on with the story.
Oh, I agree. This is especially true given the...I'm trying to find a less fanboy-ish word than "privilege"...of getting to sit at Chris Perkins' table (not that it seemed to bother the DM).
Having never heard of Chris Perkins until spotting this thread yesterday, I looked him up on youtube and watched most of a video where he was DM'ing at a convention of some sort. I would have finished it, but I had to get to sleep for work today.
While I did find the video highly entertaining, and quite funny in parts, I thought some of the players went a bit overboard with the sex jokes, but he seemed to encourage it a bit...so I guess it was all part of the show.
I don't know the people who were playing, perhaps they are celebrities (or gaming celebrities/writers/editors/designers/etc), but I must admit that I really enjoyed watching them play, something I went in thinking may be quite tedious to sit through. Quite the opposite proved to be true.
He seemed to be cool with letting players do whatever idea they came up with on the spot. Usually had them roll a "check" of some sort to see what the results would be. Some of the failing rolls had funny outcomes as well. I thnk that just comes form DM experience, and can imagine that most well versed DMs should be able to come up with stuff on the fly like that. I think it's a matter of being fair and coming up with something that seems plausable within the context of the game.
Count me as one who enjoyed his roleplaying of the NPC characters, I felt it really added to the game quite a bit, and makes me (maybe) want to try it myself when I start DM'ing for my group.
Being new to the hobby, I am unable to give any meaningful assessment of his skill as a DM, but I can say that I will be watching more of his videos.
