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Lately I've been listening to the Happy Jacks RPG Podcast, more specifically their Legend of the Five Rings campaign. They post full-length episodes with just the dead air cut out and they remind me a lot of my gaming group. There is one player who I find a little annoying, but overall I've really enjoyed the L5R episodes. I can't speak for their other campaigns or their non-Actual Play podcasts as I haven't listened to them yet.
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Oct 3, 2015 03:56
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I primarily listen for enjoyment, so good group chemistry and a lack of people who constantly get on my nerves are the primary draws for me. I don't care very much about the system the game's in or how much the rules are explained. I do tend to prefer more comedic groups than ultra-serious ones, but that may just be because it's hard to do a really serious campaign without going too far into, for lack of a better term, "tryhard mode".
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Oct 4, 2015 00:50
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bowmore posted:Had anyone seen a podcast featuring the Dresden Files RPG? The Roo Sack Gamers did a few Dresden Files episodes, starting at episode 64 in the link. It isn't a full length campaign or anything (7 episodes), but it's there.
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Nov 2, 2015 08:50
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Rick posted:The Reign stuff above is good! My point isn't that other systems can't be good or might have better rules (it's definitely not that). It's that D&D can lead to good shows too and they don't have to switch systems because all the parts aren't seamless. For some tables, mixing in GM Fiat or Homebrew or just straight bolting another game temporarily on to D&D is a lot easier and more comfortable than using a system that is completely new or just not as accessible as D&D; and comfortable players tend to be funnier players, in my listening experience. Yeah, saying "you should switch to a different system" is really underselling the task, especially when you're talking about switching mid-campaign with a large group of players. I know my personal group has discussed switching away from Pathfinder (and sometimes Burning Wheel), but we've all decided that we just don't have time to learn another system. We're not even going to try Pathfinder 2nd edition. Some of our players just do not have the time to available and we would rather keep playing a system we're familiar with, even if it isn't perfect, than "upgrade" and lose players or go through an extensive readjustment period where no one knows if we're doing things right and people spend as much time asking rules questions as actually playing and having fun. When you're talking about a production as big as Critical Role, that's magnified even more. CR's cast is incredibly busy to start with, Matthew Mercer would have an absurdly time-consuming task converting all of his world and NPCs over to a different system (especially one which doesn't operate on the same general paradigm as D&D; going from Pathfinder to 5E for the show was one thing, but Reign is a completely different system with completely different design goals), all the players would have to un-learn 5E and learn the new system over the course of a week, etc etc. It's just not really realistic. I think the Critical Role cast would agree with you that D&D isn't the best system for all players and possibly not even the best system for them, but it's a system they're all comfortable with and know well and that counts for a massive amount. It clearly doesn't seriously hinder their ability to have fun or create a game which people enjoy watching, either. Also, as was mentioned, they're literally sponsored by Wizards of the Coast. They are being paid to very specifically play D&D.
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Mar 19, 2019 19:16
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ZypherIM posted:I'd argue that you probably do have the time available to learn a new system, just not the motivation and maybe too much worry about "doing things right". And I'd argue that you have no idea what in the world you're talking about. We barely have time (plenty of motivation, believe me) to actually get together and PLAY, let alone time to sit down and read a physical rulebook. I'm not going to go into the specifics because I don't want to reveal semi-personal information to strangers on the internet, but the player in our playgroup I was specifically thinking of works a hellish factory job with 12-hour swing shift scheduling, runs his own business on the side which takes his time several nights a week, and has a wife who also works a time-intensive and somewhat erratically scheduled job so the majority of the time they both share not working is spent doing activities together because they don't exactly get a lot of time together. He does plenty of reading, but it's in audio book format at his job. He genuinely does not have the time to sit down and read through a multi-hundred page rulebook several times until he can internalize the rules. He still hasn't fully internalized Pathfinder, and we've been playing that since the beta test for first edition. If we switched to a new game system we'd lose him as a player, and given I'm the most common DM and he's my best friend, I'm not really willing to do that to him or to me. He's not the only one who doesn't have enough hours in the day as it is, either, he's just the easiest example because of that goddamn factory job. It's not a matter of inertia or selling my players on it. It's a matter of the fact that we have players who we literally joke have functioning TARDISes because we don't know how they fit as much into the day as they already do. Beyond individuals, changing to a new system as a group would involve making our already much too irregular game (we went 4 months in a row without a game from October until February) even less frequent because we'd have to run a one-shot or two to be sure we actually want to change systems. That I would certainly call a motivation issue, but dismissing it as lack of motivation is really specious. Our time together is extremely limited, so changing just to maybe find a system we like 10% more as a collective (and that's seriously debatable because we have players who REALLY like Pathfinder to the point that more than one person in our play group actually have writing credits on various PFRPG rulebooks and modules) is not really a good use of that time. EDIT2: I'd be happy to continue this conversation, but I think it's getting a little far afield from Actual Play Podcasts. As far as this thread goes, I think it's best if I just summed up my stance as "calling for strangers on the internet to change game systems in their home games which they happen to broadcast to the internet is kind of a dick move and you should probably keep it in your pants". Zurai fucked around with this message at 22:37 on Mar 19, 2019 |
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Mar 19, 2019 21:59
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Saxophone posted:Here’s a question! Re:Alignment is pretty good, lighthearted but with enough seriousness to keep it grounded.
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Jan 23, 2023 22:10
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