D&D 5E What makes a game good for streaming?

[Malmuria]

The questions of what makes a game popular and/or good for streaming seems to come up a lot on these boards, and is certainly relevant as some big streamers move away from dnd (e.g. Critical Role). I came across this blog post that had some interesting thoughts…

note: I am not the author of this blog

Old RPG Gamers and The Streaming Youth - From a Dark Forest

Another question from the dark forest, which is essentially creaky old people muttering about how much better it was back in the day. I tri...

jdcspot.blogspot.com

 

[Burnside]

Few professional actor friends and I did a podcast on "D&D as performance" - might add something to this conversation:

 

[overgeeked]

Without reading the blog or watching the video, my thoughts are…

The cast should be naturally charismatic, good performers and entertainers, have a great sense of story, be great at improv, wonderful collaborators, have great chemistry, be there for the other people at the table, and not treat the game as a stepping stone, a gig, or an opportunity to expand their reel.

The set/stage should have good lighting and sound with great coverage of the cast.

The game itself? Mostly doesn’t matter. Though the lighter and more open to drama and improv the better.

 

[Burnside]

My group made a list of best practices for the show we're currently working on:

General Cast Party Best Practices:

• Within 20 seconds of the start of the episode, we should be playing Dungeons & Dragons. Too many streaming shows start with 5-10 minutes of participants chatting/amusing themselves. Viewers clicked on the video or podcast because they wanted to watch/hear D&D. Very easy to lose a viewer by not delivering the game quickly. We’re not Critical Role & shouldn’t assume viewers have any interest in our personal lives. If there’s external stuff we need to communicate, we do it in a mid-episode break, after we’ve earned some goodwill by delivering entertainment. Credits appear at end of episode. (Recap of previous episode at start of episode is fine.)

• Make the default assumption that the tone of the show is serious. Humor will arise organically because it’s D&D, and that’s great, but we shouldn’t force it or “try” to make it funny.

• Characters should be introduced dramatically. Many streaming games start with a roll call where the players go around and say “I’m Judy and I’m playing Doomstalker the gnome cleric”, etc. This is inherently undramatic and actually doesn’t reveal that much about the character. Instead, we should look to the dramatic conventions of plays, novels, tv shows, and movies. Characters should be introduced as they appear in the adventure, in a scene, and their names, species, and classes should be revealed to the viewers by their appearance, dialogue, behavior, and abilities. Check out Critical Role, Season 2, Episode 1 for a great example of this approach (in fact, by the end of that episode the class of Travis Willingham’s character is still not clear to his fellow players). Experienced viewers will find it fun to figure out what the characters are, and inexperienced viewers don’t benefit from the roll-call approach anyway.

• Be a good listener and be open to what the DM and other players are saying and doing and allow yourself to be affected by it. “Be a good listener” sounds trite, but it’s really a big factor in whether a show like this sinks or swims. In that respect, there’s a direct parallel to theater.

• The players are engaged. Respect the DM, and try (your best) to track what’s going on in the story and engage with it, rather than be passively led. At the same time, be generally willing to meet the DM halfway and pick up on (most, but not all) dangled plot hooks. If you don’t care, the audience won’t care.

• The DM, more than anybody else, has the ability to control pacing and jump in if the story seems stalled. DM allows a healthy degree of player agency - players can make meaningful choices that affect the story and sometimes even the direction of the campaign. At the same time, the story is not SO open that the players suffer analysis paralysis and aren’t sure what to do. It’s a tough balance of guiding but not railroading the players.

• With regard to rules: defer to the DM - but flagging mistakes in the moment is welcome. Deal with it expediently.

• DM should refrain from narrating what the player characters feel or say.

 

[Malmuria]

Within 20 seconds of the start of the episode, we should be playing Dungeons & Dragons. Too many streaming shows start with 5-10 minutes of participants chatting/amusing themselves. Viewers clicked on the video or podcast because they wanted to watch/hear D&D.

So much this. I want a podcast app to be able to just skip the first 2-3 minutes of any podcast

 

[Malmuria]

The game itself? Mostly doesn’t matter. Though the lighter and more open to drama and improv the better.

One line from the above article that I thought you might appreciate

A GM is supposed to know that you really just make em roll Something, Anything, and if they roll high they do it and if they roll low they don't. (This is the only rule that actually exists in many/most of the most popular streams.)

The suggestion is that the best 'system' for even a narrative heavy game like critical role is not a game with a lot of story-oriented mechanics but an FKR style game with basically this one rule (try to roll high) and lots of work put into player dynamics (as well as audience facing performance)

 

[LordEntrails]

So much this. I want a podcast app to be able to just skip the first 2-3 minutes of any podcast

Even worse then that are videos that are not trimmed and have some opening screen like "Game Starting Soon" for the first 5 minutes of the video.