I Watch Roleplaying Shows
Currently, I follow ‘Rollplay – Mirrorshades‘, ‘Rollplay – Swan Song‘ and ‘Critical Role‘, I watch the Acquisitions Inc. PAX games every year, I tried ‘Turn Order – Edge Runners‘ but didn’t quite like it, I, of course, watch the RPGs on TableTop when they happen and I just finished watching ‘Titansgrave: The Ashes of Valkana‘.
Why? Well, it’s fun. That’s the first thing. Secondly, I think there is a benefit to roleplayers from watching others play. Whether it is to get a different perspective, see what they’re doing right, what they’re doing wrong and probably change your style accordingly, especially if you enjoy what you see.
I started watching Mirrorshades because it’s Shadowrun and I love Shadowrun. Even if it’s first edition (which is weird) and I stayed because the players are very engaged, the GM is incredible, in preparation and performance, and it’s touching at times, has good action and mostly just funny and fun.
I stopped watching Edge Runners because that was almost the complete opposite. The GM was new and inexperienced. While I might fault the language use of the Mirrorshades crew, they know what they want and what they mean. They don’t fumble. That was not the case here. The players seem not that engaged and not that interesting and everyone seemed like they were trying too hard. And the story itself didn’t hook me.
Watching Critical Role is like watching the X-Games. The cast is all engaged with the story, they care about what happens. And even with eight players, everyone cares that everyone shines. And on top of that, being professional voice actors who love roleplaying games, they do special voices for their characters. And then, there’s the GM, also a voice actor, gives every NPC a style of their own and makes the story come alive, when doing routine investigation, dungeon crawling or clobbering monsters.
Acquisitions Inc. is composed of three web comics creators and usually one more writer. It’s managed by the current editor of the D&D line. And it’s a PAX show in and of itself. So, it’s high quality, high action and extremely funny. Truly, an experience not to miss.
Why should you watch Roleplaying Shows? You probably shouldn’t. Each episode, usually coming every week or two, is between three and five hours in length. And most of these shows, especially the good ones, already have a good track of episodes. So, catching up will take time. So, these are a serious drain on resources.
But if you’re interested in roleplaying, if you want to improve yourself or just enjoy watching the antics of good roleplayers have fun, then I consider it a good use of my time.
Posted in Gaming, No Category, Practice, Role-Playing, Thinking Out Loud by Eran with comments disabled.