Watching others play ttrpgs

So I watched a couple games on twitch.

D&D games........

I'm not saying I watched them ALL, or saw everyone streaming their game. However, I just gotta ask, WTF?

>No rp
>no plots
>no sense of 'adventure'
>no funny
>seriously didn't look fun

I've had some bad times involving gaming. When one of our regular members dropped our numbers down to 4, that was bad, and sad. We knew we wouldn't find a quick replacement (still haven't).
But we kept on, and kept the same "quality" to our games. I know, I know, quality is in the eye of the viewer, but damn....wtf is wrong with these online DM's?

Is THIS the kind of shit that people watch and think "This is how you play d&d"? I mean you CAN play it that way, but why would you want to?

Some of you Veeky Forumsfags are very creative. You fucks need to start DM'ing games and providing something GOOD to watch, in hopes of drawing others into the sport.

If I was just learning about ttrpgs, and watched some of these fuckers play, I'd find a new hobby quickly.

Veeky Forums, I'm disappointed in you all.

>Watching a session
>dm tells group that a tall tree could provide a spotting bonus
>female immediately shapeshifts into a bumblebee to fly to the top
>everyone praises her as being 'clever' for thinking of that

A.Fucking.Bumblebee.

I vomited a bit.

I felt this way when I listened to Acquisitions Incorporated.

I mean, those guys I think have played quite a bit of DnD, and the two that are from Penny Arcade are actually accomplished DMs supposedly (they write about really interesting sessions on the webpage and one of them has been playing for a long while), and yeah they played 4e which is more tactical but... it was so bland!
"The goblin misses you/hits you for 2 damage."
"You kill him."
"He is bloodied."

One of them, the guy playing Jim Darkmagic, was actually trying (saying out loud the descriptions of spells, talking of himself in the third person... jokes of course, but at least a semblance of RP).

I don't know if it gets better later on but it was pretty damn shit at the start. And from what some people write on here (minmaxing, hating character descriptions, open world etc.), I guess they prefer it this way. I don't know why though. I think for one, vidya is way better at the numbers/strategy thing, so if I was that kind of person I wouldn't go for a ttrpg.

>Pc's are climbing stairs down
>1 pc hangs back at top of stairs and listens for sounds
>other pc's charge into the room and get attacked by some sonic blasting creature that hits them all for 4d8 damage
>other pc hears the battle and sits at the top of the stairs, rummaging through kobold slave beds
>pc's hit the creature and it flees into a big pit in the floor
>it was literally a room by room adventure
>no plot, no 'story', no fun

>I felt this way when I listened to Acquisitions Incorporated

I sorta felt like AI games were made to be videos, if that makes sense.

Like plot was secondary to getting off a few one liners, and trying to keep wil wheaton calm and focused.

4/10, didn't enjoy as much as a Chris Perkins DM game should have been enjoyed.

I have only seen a couple of these webseries, but my group does almost zero roleplay in combat. There's only so many ways you can hack, slash, and smite goblins, kobolds, and gnolls. They tried doing witty one lines and banter like it was a movie for a while, but that just gets old. Combat roleplay is unnecessary as long as the campaign as RP.

You know what? I'd even be willing to ignore some lack of RP outside of combat, or in combat, as long as there is a PLOT to the fucking game.

>We'll be fighting in this room, here's a map
>G' job guys, now we'll be fighting in this totally different room, see, it's 3 squares bigger
>Nice job, now we'll be fighting in (x).....

Over and over and over. That's just not my cup o' tea

What's the one with that mercer guy? that does all the voicing in games?

I hear it's pretty good, it's all voice actors for players. Never seen it tho.

It's not mine either, but yhey just do these online series to monetize. How many people who watch twitch and youtube videos actually pay attention to stuff like that?

I don't doubt that you're correct about monetizing.

I wonder how well a "Normal" game would go over?

That's what I like with Critical Role because when the players just say "I hit the giant with my axe." Matt then described it along the lines of "you went under the giant, took a second to aim your strike and *WHAM* slashed it in his leg."

Role-playing combat is hard but when done right it can alleviate the length of most systems combat, don't be shy to ask your DM for help.

Normal game stocked with regular people? There's a lot of those and they don't get many views.

Normal game stocked with these big names who are usually voice actors? Not as many for some reason. I wonder if it's because these kinds of people have a lot of other responsibilities and putting the effort into a regular game is unnecessary and energy consuming. They have their own real life campaigns they care about, why invest time and emotion in an online series if you're just trying to make a quick buck? Plus, these webseries aren't much different than roll20 in that they can die suddenly if people get other, well paying obligations. It's about the money after all.

>There's a lot of those and they don't get many views.

That's too bad.

But like you said. It's all about the money I guess.

Spoilered for minor lewd

Streams are shit, it's that simple.

I think it may incorporate a bit of taste.

I really like that my DM is far more narrative based (to where it can feel a little rail-roady at times), but one of our previous players couldn't stand it. While we have an open(ish. Not everywhere is safe enough to go) world she wanted more freedom, and I guess would have preferred bread crumbs over the paths we have.

She also got antsy if we had a full RP session and no combat, where as the rest if our party didn't mind that.

Femanon here. I am horrified as I am intrigued.

Critical Role, on Geek and Sundry. I watch it, it's pretty good.

Travis Willingham and Sam Riegel are fantastic with Laura Bailey a decent 3rd place. Marisha Rey and Liam O'Brien get kinda annoying with Marisha's metagaming and Liam's character being the "I'm emo" rogue/paladin. Taliesan is the worst with his emo scientist/gunfighter. Matt Mercer does a good variety of characters that all are mostly pretty well done and somewhat memorable.

Would a yellowjacket work or does it have to be a bee?

dude dont even fucking say that that scares me

I hear people say Marisha metagames a lot, but I haven't seen it, at least not in comparison to Orion. Not denying or anything, legitimately curious for any examples.

Talesin can definitely be obnoxious, but he does it better, I guess, than Liam. Every time he opens his mouth, in character or out, I roll my eyes. He has single-handedly made me hate the Raven Queen.

I actually think Percy's pretty good. He has shit moments but that's the risk you take by playing a serious character.

Sam and Travis are always gold because they are entertaining people with on point senses of humor and a strong grasp on their (usually) one-dimensional characters. This makes their character's actions consistent with what the audience expects from them and therefor makes them entertaining to watch.

The rare moments of serious character actions (Grog's "FIX HIM" and Scanlan's rant in E85) are made all the more incredible because they were infrequent but still happened when they needed to.

Taleisin, Liam, Laura, Ashley and Marisha have the difficult task of playing characters with three dimensions so in order to better understand them they have to do more stuff with the time they have. This is obviously harder to do. They are also less comedic than Sam and Travis, giving them less wiggle room in that respect.

Laura and Ashley circumvent this by being amazing, not because Taleisin, Liam and Marisha are bad.

Basically it's less of a case of being shit players (these people ARE professional actors...) and more of a case of not knowing how to create a character on their own (...they're NOT professional writers. )

Honestly I try to utilize my cursory understanding of Matt Mercer's style:
RPing NPCs
Allowing fun to overrule overbearing rule structures
Asking players to describe their actions, including awarding them with killshot animating to a point
Improvising subtely while trying to keep a coherent narrative

Only way I digress is creating character balance from the beginning rather than trying to freewheel it in the middle but that's vecause one of my players is a slightly autistic powergamer

Roll your eyes if you wish but if you want to entertain people, as every DM should, you should take notes from an entertainer

I use to listen to the Critical Hit Podcast, I only ever got to the final session of the first adventure they did, but I thought they were pretty good.

It started off as just one of their cast members wanting to know how play DnD, and their DM teaching him how to make a 4e Wizard, then a full on game.

I suggest starting at Episode 4 (Graduation Day) and listening at least till Episode 6 to see if you like it.

do people not do that?

Those videos always remind me of the ways my group wouldn't work if streamed. It starts by a bunch of white dudes actually calling the black member "nigger" all the time, it's his nickname. Another would look a very forced acting, but the bastard actually calls himself "the best" or "a god" all the time. He actually messages this at odd hours sometimes. I'm also reminded of the time that sucubus was beaten during sex.

Do any of these streams roll out the dirty jokes and opinions best kept with friends?

check out harmonquest, it is pretty funny and has some good roleplaying

I like wearefoxhound on twitch, decent mix of serious and fun, combat and rp, plus its dark sun, which is awesome

Acquisitions Inc. I think is intentionally diluted for a mass audience, but Rothfuss and Krahulik bring in some tabletop magic sometimes.

Perkins is actually really underplayed, but it's like he's intentionally so. It's to a point I find it hard to understand.

Holkins and Kurtz are the real fun-ruiners. I'd replace at least one of them with Wheaton if I could.

If I'm going full fantasy-D&D team here:
And I'd put Rothfuss in charge of creative direction by having him DM, hire a robot to manage the rules and number crunch for Rothfuss, turn Perkins into a player, and become a player myself. Just Perkins, Krahulik, myself, and Wheaton, with Rothfuss getting ridiculous.

>watching PnP Games
The problem lies with you not with the people who are streaming or whatever.