Are Actual-Play Podcasts Useful?
Posted by: Shaun in Gaming, Podcasts, Ramblings, tags: actual-play, games, podcastingI’ve subscribed to a couple of AP gaming podcasts over the last couple of years, such as the World of Skell, The Game Master Show, The Rolemonkeys, and, most recently, This Is Shadowrun. Most of the time, I’ll admit, they tend to go unlistened to.
I think that the problem is that, with a few exceptions, RPG sessions tend to be boring for those of us who aren’t directly involved. The Game Master Show has a slight advantage in this area - after their games, they actually go through and critique the sessions. This is extremely valuable to me as a gamer. But most other AP podcasts simply go through their sessions, without taking the time for post-game editorial.
Coupled with this is the length of the average game session. I’d say most range between 4 and 8 hours. To conserve bandwidth and storage, most AP casts get broken down into bite sized chunks - 2 hours or so. That, however, seems to be the end of the editing process. We still get the long pauses while someone looks up a rule, the side conversations that get inadvertently picked up by the microphones, and all of the bumps, pops, and clicks from impacts on the table. That makes things very hard to listen to.
On the other hand, I wouldn’t want to edit those shows, either. 8 hours of audio to listen to? It’s not like an advice or talk podcast that you can slim down to carefully planned points of discussion. I really don’t blame anyone for not wanting to sit through a gaming session twice just to cut out the sound of someone’s dice-tower falling over when another gamer bumps the table en route to the fridge.
I suppose my real problem with AP casts is that, for the most part, I don’t get anything from them. The production is to distracting to really catch the great techniques that the GM’s are employing. The mic is too far away when a player cracks a joke, but plenty close enough for the subsequent peal of laughter to blow out my eardrums. I can’t hear what roll was called for, but I can damn sure hear the handful of dice clatter to the table.
I don’t bring these things up to discourage AP podcasters. And, as I said before, there are exceptions. But it would be both awesome and valuable to see if there are ways around these problems.
Hell, if there are, I’ll probably start recording my own sessions.
February 22nd, 2008 at 5:26 am - Edit
Hey, just added you to my own blogroll. Reciprocal back-scratchery and all that. I can say for myself that the only AP recording I’ve found helpful was of a playtest of my own game, and even then, I only listened to a few parts. I haven’t found AP podcasts very interesting - about a half hour through, I realize I’m not listening at all (I usually listen to podcasts while playing WoW or commuting) and switch to something better…what might be useful is a discussion of a game session interspersed with snippets of the actual play to illustrate points, but as you pointed out, I’d had to slog through 5 hours of audio to find the illustrations.