The history of actual play as entertainment.

[JEB]

I'm not personally familiar with it, but Dungeon Majesty was apparently a c. 2004 public access cable show in the U.S. that was sort of a Critical Role before Critical Role. Except with LARPing and low-budget special effects.

 

[Reynard]

Record of Lodoss War started as a series of "replay" serialized novels. Basically, a novelization of a B/X campaign in Japan. It was first serialized in the Japanese Comptiq magazine beginning in 1986. It is basically where all of the Japanese fantasy tropes in gaming and media originated. If TSR had actually translated D&D into Japanese, then D&D would be as dominant as widespread there as it is here. Alas, TSR's infamously poor foresight led them astray once again.

I knew Lodoss was based on old D&D but I did not know it was based on an actual play report.

 

[Reynard]

In the early 80's TSR tried to do a sort of actual play like thing as a radio show.

That is bonkers. Gives me more "how to play" than "actual play" vibes, but yeah, crazy.

 

[MNblockhead]

Critical Role started as a 4E one shot for Liam's birthday. They switched to Pathfinder 1E when they started doing a campaign. Then to 5E just before they started streaming.

Acquisitions Incorporated was first on the scene, as far as I know.

Most of my D&D group was watching CR and trying to get me to watch. I resisted until they did their Call of Cthulhu one shot. I was hooked after that.

Chris Perkins did some live plays videos to teach how to play 4e, which spun off into some celebrity live plays, such as the live play with the Robot Chicken.

Okay, I just looked it up, the podcast live play with Chris Perkins and the Penny Arcade folks, which became Acquisitions Incorporated started in 2008. Two years before his live play with commentary videos teaching the game.

 

[MNblockhead]

In the early 80's TSR tried to do a sort of actual play like thing as a radio show.

Yeah, but that was scripted. Not really a live play. Still, its a cool artifact of early TSR-era D&D. I love that stirges featured prominently.

 

[overgeeked]

I assume you mean for live plays, not actual play in general. Or is AI that old?

Yeah. I read the question as live plays. I think Bacon is right. Record of Lodoss War is likely the earliest actual play. Certainly the most famous early actual play.

 

[Jahydin]

The first time I ever saw actual play content was I Hit It with My Axe by TheEscapist (2010).

As for what actually paved the way for Critical Role like shows, I think that would have to be Chris Perkins' and Penny Arcade's Acquisitions Incorporated (2008) ... which for some reason I didn't know about until 2011. Odd since I was big into D&D and Penny Arcade at the time...

 

[PoC2]

Who was the first? What was the first live play podcast?

I think it can be useful to define terms.

Actual Play where the word “actual” means a realtime “actual” audio or video recording or live stream (not a later intermediate/redacted/modified write-up) of a roleplaying game - which is shared online, as @BigJackBrass says, was done by me in January 2003 (in the days of dial-up) with about 17 years-worth of subsequent.

We also did our first live streamed video Actual Play (with viewer interaction and feedback in the chat room) in 2006.

2006 was also our first binaurally recorded game, and 2016 for ambisonic. Funny how things have developed over the years. It seems a different space now than those raw, early days of 21 years ago.

 

[Reynard]

I think it can be useful to define terms.

Actual Play where the word “actual” means a realtime “actual” audio or video recording or live stream (not a later intermediate/redacted/modified write-up) of a roleplaying game - which is shared online, as @BigJackBrass says, was done by me in January 2003 (in the days of dial-up) with about 17 years-worth of subsequent.

We also did our first live streamed video Actual Play (with viewer interaction and feedback in the chat room) in 2006.

2006 was also our first binaurally recorded game, and 2016 for ambisonic. Funny how things have developed over the years. It seems a different space now than those raw, early days of 21 years ago.

Thanks for chiming in!

 

[PoC2]

No worries, any more questions about Actual Play early days (that I can reasonably answer), do ask.

I'm not personally familiar with it, but Dungeon Majesty was apparently a c. 2004 public access cable show in the U.S. that was sort of a Critical Role before Critical Role. Except with LARPing and low-budget special effects.

Fond memories.