Best and worst D&D/RP podcasts?

Pretty much the only two I can stand from what i've listened to are Drink Spin Run and Spellburn.
Gonna check out Sanctum Secorum now that this thread made me go look around a bit, they seem to choose interesting topics at the very least.

I don't even play DCC, opting instead for old school D&D, I should probably get around to it if their podcasts are at all indicative of the community for it.

I see them too user. It's glorious.

>Once a former merchant

So she's a merchant again?

>Merchant turned Ranger turned Bladesinger

Holly's tiefling is a Q-t as well.

>podcasts
Not trolling, what's the point?
I can read faster than they speak, and if I'm doing anything else at the same time I won't be able to hear a 100% of what they say.
Unless I'm driving, but there are too many podcasts for the niche market of nerds using a car.

But you don't stop being a former something until you're that something again, it's like a past tense double negative.

RPGMP3 the original and best (more specifically the BAG People)

I'm sorry I can't do podcasts, and I tried watching a D&D session before in twitch and I couldn't get farther than an hour into it before literally passing out from boredom

Is critical roll actually good? All my friends act like it's the next coming of Jesus Christ I just don't see it

Not only is watching others play D&D pretty boring, the popular ones are inevitably the shittiest ones around.

I like D&D but it's generally not fun to listen too.

That being said I like the Drunk and Ugly, especially their SMT and Other Childish Things campaign.

RPPR is also pretty good.

Roleplaying Public Radio is probably one of the best podcasts out there, and I greedily await Caleb's schedule opening up again so he can run a campaign. Not that I don't like Ross's stuff, but even the best of his campaigns couldn't top stuff like Know Evil, arguably the most defining Eclipse Phase campaign I've ever heard of.

Critical Role is flawed in a lot of ways. For as long as they've been playing, the only ones who seem to have their rules down perfectly are Sam, Liam, Travis, and Taelsin. Sometimes the roleplaying can be a little thick. But when it shines, it shines well. I'd argue that you should just watch the show for Sam and Travis alone.

I enjoyed The Adventure Zone.

I don't know but it must be doing something right. Even if it was only appealing to Normies.

I think it appears to the large number of people who simply aren't interested in tabletop gaming yet still have interested in Dungeons & Dragons.

Just like Marvel movies appeals to people interested in superheroes yet don't reads comics.

If you're here you're probably not gonna get much out of it.

Drunks and dragons is one of the best dnd podcast out there. ive been listening since episode 2. (geeklyink.com)

>the only ones who seem to have their rules down perfectly are Sam, Liam, Travis, and Taelsin
Huh. So you're saying the guys have a grasp of the system but the girls don't? Really gets my noggin jogging.

Critical Role has the visuals, the live audience interaction, the recognisable celebrities and most importantly the voice performances.

TAZ isn't d&d as it should be played, and I'm glad they've admitted it in-show. The main arc (Balance) just runs through a series of linear 'missions' punctuated by shopping breaks.

On the other hand, TAZ is entertaining as hell. The DM's willing to let the players fuck around (and skip more than one boss encounter this way), the players buy into the DM's narrative, and all-in-all I loved it. It's just nothing like how I'd run a campaign.

I only listened to a few episodes, but Film Reroll was great from what I listened to. The Indiana Jones and Back to the Future ones had me laughing my ass off.

I personally love Party Roll, where the D&D just serves as a vessel for the players' tangents and irl shitposting. They play through LMoP initailly and there barebones meme characters are fun for a while, fortunaly the first season ends before the characters become too boring. Second season is homebrew and the players create much more interseting(but still wacky) characters in a completely acceptable campaign.

Roll to Hit is great as well, just a good, solid and enjoyable 5E podcast, season 1 is carried by a single character/player with occasional moments from the other players while season 2 is the aforementioned player DMing one of the best 45 episodes of a podcast I've ever listened to.

The Glass Cannon is fantastic apart from the fact that they're playing Pathfinder and are now an official Paizo podcast(which means they can't talk shit about Pathfinder as much). Certain players are irritating now and then and one character is basically anime but the players and DM mesh really well and there's lots of laughs. Some episodes where its just combat suck dick but you have to take the good with the bad.

Anyway thanks for reading my blog :)

>the recognisable celebrities

These people are barely celebrities. I mean, I didn't know what even one of them looked like before Critical Role.

I really enjoy both the normal Acquisitions Inc and C-Team spin-off games. Only issue with the former is they happen pretty infrequently, latter is that Jerry can get a little full of himself on descriptors sometimes.

Dice, Camera, Action can be entertaining just because Chris is such a damn good DM, though the players can range from anywhere from whatever to actually interesting at any time.

Not D&D, but the new Power Rangers Hyperforce is kind of decent; though so far only because Paul Schrier just fucking nails it with everything he says/does.

That's very true, though I certainly enjoyed the more free balling nature of their campaign and how Griffin and the party cleared put narrative function above strictly following the rules, like using some spells in ways they don't work, or kind of housekeeping mechanics. But to be fair, it was pretty much all their first times playing D&D besides Travis, and Griffin's first DM session. But they have talked about doing mini campaigns with different games and learning systems better so it's not as Willy nilly as Balance was.

Talisen does my fucking head in with his edgy bullshit, Marisha, well there's been enough bad shit said about her most of which I agree with. The saviours are Travis and Sam, Travis is the only one who shushes the group when they're talking over all the DMs hard work and actually plays properly with no ,eta gaming. Sam Is a strong second after Grog for RPing without going overboard like Liam.

>tl;dr Sam & Travis best players and characters, they save the whole show

Honestly I barely recognise any of the names in critcal role. Even the walking memes that are Will Weaton and Felicity Day.

Personally I think good voice actors shouldn't be recognisable, but talent is talent I'll give you that and it is useful for tabletop games.

Role Play Public Radio is God teir

Is Danny playing there too? I like that guy

Danny is busy having an active work life and actually devoting himself to his craft

I like the Swan Song stuff from RollPlay. It's actually fun to listen to. It has some flaws, but it's very engaging.

Not a podcast, but Harmon Quest.

>Drunks

Already a red flag

>i throw it down and i shit myself
epic

Total Party Thrill is best imho
actual play podcasts are almost completely unbearable, as are liveplays. much rather read a campaign log

Not that guy but I only watch it for the guests, because I think watching someone new to ttrpgs try it their first time is the most adorable thing in the world. I also the grognard shut-in DM showing up to every game in cargo shorts and autism sneakers and basically trying to tell the story through guiding the guest of the week.

Otherwise you've just got, on repeat:
Dan - "haha im a coward"
His exwife - "haha im insecure and have to sing when i rage"
Goblin Whatshisface - "I want to do a very elaborate acrobatic thing"

The C-team is GOAT

Honestly I think Laura ended up being a pretty good player by the end too

I'm just giving him shit because this is Veeky Forums and someone basically has to. I fucking love harmonquest.

It fucking sucks. The party is like 8 fucking people. Fuck that fucking shit what the fuck. I tried listening to it during my commute for about a week and it was a goddamn nightmare.

Yeah that's reasonable. I just listen to them for ideas and shit since I'm typically GMing, I have 2 hours to fill like every day, and I can't stand audiobooks.

That reminds me. Has anyone ever listened to Hello From the Magic Tavern? Can anyone provide a way to listen to their spinoff podcast Offices and Bosses without paying florins to the online Shylock that is Patreon?

Are there any good shows/podcasts with a primarily female cast? There are plenty of good male-centric shows, but it gets tiring when every cast member is either a deep voiced grognard or a nasal teen

I really enjoy TAZ at the moment. All of the McElroys have some background in improv which makes it highly entertaining.

Critical Role is something that I used to watch but got bored with. I found that it mainly helped me get better at DMing when I was new to D&D. Seeing Matthew Mercer DM was very inspiring.

Worst: I had high hopes for game grumps but the first episode was cringe as hell. Hopefully it gets better as they get more into it but I won't hold my breath

The only big mainly-female ones I know of are misscliks and that new liveplay show WotC gave Satine Phoenix, but I can't speak directly to the quality of either because I've never played them.

There's a new one put out by the encounter roleplay network called Wanderquest that's a completely female cast, and I've been listening to that over the past few days. How good it is depends entirely on your stomach for melodrama of the "everyone has dead families and/or missing babies" and "we have to console one of the player characters after they killed their first person" sort

Whoops, meant to quote

I got very hopeful for a minute

>not continuously listening to lingual input while doing non-lingual activities
You have multiple dedicated subsystems in your brain that do not require each other to interact to work, why aren't you taking advantage of this?
You can work on something that uses your hands, something that requires listening to words, AND look for stuff if you're real good.

Yogscast High Rollers has a 4 member party with two female players. Both start to really take it seriously as the game goes on too.

what are you implying? that women can't take roleplaying seriously?

I watch only Rollplay so I'll try to be as objective as I can.

Pros:
>Great production quality
>Many different systems, not just DnD
>Different cast for each show means different dynamic and everything feeling rather unique
>Adam Koebel is a pretty good GM and quite well informed about PnP games

Cons:
>Adam Koebel is a faggot
>Muh safe space muh hugbox
>Needs more variety of GMs

Tbh I want to get into other streams/podcasts but man is the production quality of those generally garbage.

Is that actually any good? I watched a bit of an episode with Kim and Trott(?) and gave it up almost immediately

>I'm a cleric but actually a conmanXD
>DON'T TALK TO ME OR MY EDGE EVER AGAIN tiefling

The longer I watch rollplay the more I start to think jp himself isn't that great a player even though he keeps the whole thing "running" as it were.

Koebel is by all means a good GM, but I don't think I would get along very well with him if I knew him irl. I REALLY miss Steven Lumpkin.

Nah, I was thinking about the fact that they were both new when I typed it. But I'll say yes anyway because fuck it there are no girls here

I think so. The edgelord chick was annoying at first but she was new. Really the thing I like most about it is how well the DM and twee bard/con man/cleric/pirate eased the newbies into the spirit of the game.

>No Danny or Brian

No point. Just one of them would have helped immensely.

>I'm a cleric but actually a conman
But that's the very way Trickery domain clerics usually roll, user.

>improv background
really? this is highly disappointing to find out. I have been giving TAZ a second chance due to all the love it gets here and this makes me expect more than I'm already not getting

Came to post this

Ashley Johnson missed an episode because she was receiving a BAFTA. For voice-acting. There's certainly people with no interest in d&d or TTRPG who picked up the show because they recognised some of the people in it.

There's one or two moments that REALLY bugged me (like the top of the tower in Petals to the Metal) but aside from that I enjoyed basically everything. They did a good job using 5e mechanics to represent interesting encounters like the whole minecart chase sequence or Wonderland. Plus, the general irreverance that the (new) GM has for the Forgotten Realms setting just adds to the experience. Having encounters take place in a giant elevator showroom or while livestreaming the tomb of horrors has this appeal I can't really find in standard fantasy.

Anyone familiar with Friends at the Table? I've heard a bit of their Dungeon World actual-play stuff, but I've been put off by how it flips between 2 or 3 groups.

They eventually do stuff that isn't dungeon world, but I'm kinda-sorta invested in the undead pirate city shenanigans.

I can't read and listen to podcasts at the same time either. If I'm reading I miss everything they're saying. I can read and listen to music though.

Lumpy is pathologically unable to hold a schedule. It's partly due to work, gamedev is not the most evenly distributed job, time-wise, but it seems to be a personality thing too. So it's kinda obvious why JP dropped him. Though West Marches were dope

Honestly Critical Roll to me has waaaayy too many people and everyhting is super bogged down in combat. Matt Mercer, Travis, and Sam are god-tier voice actors with most everyone else ranging from meh(marisha) to ok(Talien). Laura gets extra points because she voiced Maka, that is all.

I truly enjoy The Unexpectables and that's about it. Probably due to all of the 90's cartoon shenanigans they get into, I dunno.

As a non-native english speaker, I always find entertaining to practice my "listening" with all these sort of podcast stuff

I like the Adventure Zone!

I can only ever seem to get into Filmreroll. A bunch of actors actually acting instead of being goofy fantasy tropes.

I'm a big fan of adventure zone, but I've bounced off of Friends at the Table. Their mic quality is pretty rough, and I couldn't get invested in any of the arcs I tried.

I do have a big electronics soldering project coming up in the future, so I guess I could try again since I'll just be sitting there for a while. My main problem is that some people are recorded very quiet and others are VERY loud, so I can't get it to sound right on speakers or on headphones. Makes it a pain to listen to.

It gets better after a few sessions. The stuff they're doing nowadays for WotC is probably better if you don't want to archive binge 60+ episodes.

>Ashley Johnson missed an episode because she was receiving a BAFTA. For voice-acting
She also has to play via Skype half the time because she's in Blindspot, so yeah. People will at least know some of their names

>Filmreroll
I just googled that and the concept alone is really interesting.

you can't do two things that require the lingual section at the same time, user.
Do something with your hands instead.

It's not D&D, but I have to highly recommend Ghostbusters: Resurrection.

It's about 1 hour per episode with Seasons lasting about 15 episodes.

It follows the Central Florida Ghostbusters as they go on missions ranging from comically goofy to near-apocalyptic.

The tone closely echoes what we see in the classic films and in some of the better episodes of the cartoon series.

I watch the Unexpectables because my friends do. It's weird. Having actual voice actors playing means that a lot of the time they're all vying for the spotlight because they can actually roleplay well. Which can get annoying but I think the most is that the one non-voice actor they have in the group seems to be trying to overcompensate because he can't play as well from them. Sure, he's playing a Rogue but he's basically for a while now he's constantly been trying to go on his own to get attention.

Just last night he basically triggered a DO SOMETHING FAGGOT OR BAD SHIT WILL HAPPEN flag because he ran off on his own and then when he did nothing because he ran away and bad shit happened he started bitching at the GM.

Like fuck, if you're gonna try and steal attention and get solo focus fucking buckle down and don't be a bitch when it bites you in the ass

I loved Petals to the Metal, I never expected to be so excited for a TTRPG race segment. Also the Suffering Game was a neat way to threaten a high level party beyond just throwing huge damage sponges at them.

I fucking this group youtu.be/C50mWC7pSoE I don't know if it's a good or bad thing that they're completely unknown

I saw that stream. I agree that Goomba struggles with the spotlight, his hands were so full of spaghetti when he actually got it. I dunno, i just get annoyed at times with Taka's talking over of everyone.

>I fucking this group

I recommend Alien, The Wizard of Oz and Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure.

Are there any podcasts that don't focus on recording game sessions and instead strictly discuss mechanics of systems/DM advice/game theory?

Recorded game sessions are everywhere but I've yet to find some extremely well rounded and knowledgeable hobbyists talk about games.

Taka's new so I can forgive him, he does get bad at times and since he picked such a basic COMBATDERPS class, the only interesting stuff he can do out of combat is roleplay.

Goomba totally flubbed last night and his excuses were week as shit. He started this whole Sully quest line but then when he was put up to bat he bitched out. His reasoning was shit too. "Ugh it's a demi-god he'll KILL me"
Like fucks sake, you've played with your GM up to level 4 and you still can't tell she wouldn't fuck you that way?

Though in the end, I could see the railroad coming a mile a way at this point because there's no way the GM would have went to all that effort if she didn't plan to use it.

If they turned her in, she'd accept the deal.
If she got cornered she'd accept the deal.
If they talked her down, she'd accept the deal when they turned her in.
If they tried to run with her, she'd accept the deal to save them.
But he still botched it. He just needs to deal with it.

Also FUCK Zito really does wanna drop Task. I know he said something last week, but I can FEEEEEEEEL it in how he's playing now and this is the perfect "I'M DONE" excuse he can use to get rid of him.

This is amazing, exactly what I have been desiring for in terms of actual RP. It's not over the top and zanny and just works and flow really well.

I was gonna say this. Someone explained it perfectly though. HQ is a bunch of comedians trying to be the funniest and Dan Harmon trying to tell a story through his character with "arcs" while also trying to be funny and immature.

I enjoy it but it doesn't feel like genuine roleplay.

The last time I followed a series that was genuienly funny and felt like roleplay was a long time ago with Cryaotics' series. I was invested into the characters and enjoyed the listen but watching others play isn't as interesting anymore unless it's played up like
youtube.com/watch?v=SnS14PQcXSs

But now that I finally stopped being awkward and jumped into roleplaying myself (as ironic as that sounds) I can't even begin to listen to podcast like the OP. I'm not a huge gamegrumps fan but I find the an enjoyable bunch to listen to and even then I don't care.

Also leave it to Arin to be the fucking slut of the group.

I'm thinking of starting one myself, but Runehammer [formerly drunken and dragons] is good, but it seems for me it'l be a solo venture and I think I work best with a cohost.

I'm considering for the first part of explaining how to get into D&D [for normies] and then working on adventure design, dungeon design and encounter design.

Maybe one of the others said something to him offscreen to tone him down? He did restrain himself multiple times last night.

Yeah the railroad was long-coming but ultimately necessary, what were they going to do? take on Alavast? Run to another city state?

I don't think Zito wants to drop Task, Just playing up the whole "Reckless Avenger" schtick after Stillhavity stole his (Sisters?) helm. Then again, playing a character and reconciling them with the initial idea can sometimes happen. It did with a Shi'Ido I played ina starwars campaign once.

Try 2gms1mic.

Are you thinking of a podcast or video? Videos are done to death on getting into D&D for normies(Colville, Take20, Bacon battalion, and other youtubers I can't remember). Gotta say though the designs sounds interesting to me, as I've only run about 20 sessions and can afford to learn more.

I'm thinking of videos and probably podcast when visual aids are not required, for example I would make a map on a table and discuss what mechanics can be included in a room, I don't want to just sit infront of a camera and talk like Covile as intelligent as he can be, he's basically doing a podcast. I want to probably use other podcast stuff to discuss news in the industry, new games or developments or some stupid shit that I've seen in modules [I.e that one character in Wrath of the Rightous PF AP]

What I dislike though is how they think the Sun Clerics "attacked them first." And I know their GM is gonna bite them with the ass with it.

The Sun Clerics did not attack, they charged at them and their group fired the first shot and they've dug themselves so deep with this current affair I don't know how they can logically be allowed to stay in Alivast.

At this point they've
1. Lied to one of the highest officers in the land
2. Hid a fugitive based entirely on a surface level sob story
3. Destroyed property
4. Started an international incident based on testimony of criminals
5. Allowed horrible monsters to enter the city through their actions

And Gaijin flubbed it again when he said SULLY in front of the paladins. Just fuck at this point I feel like logically they should be kicked out

In case you don't already know, there is Ultimate Effort podcast, haven't finished listening so I can't say anything per quality
Given Hankerins love of the ICRPG Google+ community, you'd probably be best tying it into that somehow... he's all about collaborating and building it with the community growing around it

Once I make a few videos and get a schedule going as I'm a procrasting asshole, Hankerin is the no.1 guy I'd want to speak in terms of RPGs.

Yeah Task fucked them over hard by shooting first, it wasn't even a self-defense case.

While I kinda agree with most of those points I do disagree with your conclusion. They have proven themselves useful and paid the fine of 2K gold. If I was Monty I would suggest they be sent to fight the Fire Giants otherwise they won't receive any new quests/jobs from those in power. Otherwise Everyman is the only option for work anymore.

Gaijin absolutely flubbed and I have never wanted to smack someone so much for that.

The first I guess quarter of TAZ:B kind of sucks. It takes off. A lot of the low points are also easier to brush off when you're already a fan of the McElroys too.

I just...fuck I still don't get why they jobbed so FAST to SUN NAZI FUCK YOU without thinking of the consequences

I quite enjoy the one Shot podcasts's Edge of the Empire campaign, it's great inspiration for what mindset is best for using the system.

Mirrorshades was amazing, but it is mostly the players fucking around while the DM struggles with the game system.