Regarding the Adventure Zone...

What's Waugh inserting?

I listened to it, and I always wonder why you guys jump on WOMENZ GUYS AMIRITE when there are other more valid complaints.

I just found out tyranny had a shit unfinished ending because you guys would never stop complaining about how that game was full of SJW bullshit (turns out it wasn't, surprise surprise) but never mentioned the fucking shit ending.

Really, the one you SHOULD be complaining about is greckles.

I dunno man. I enjoyed Balance but towards the end it felt like it was getting boring. There was some incredible parts even then but overall I felt there was less interaction between the family, and the way they bounce off of eachother is what makes them entertaining. And Clints arc I couldnt get into because I didnt give a fuck about the characters. I havent watched any of this arc yet. I wish i could better express whst ny problems are but eh. I just feel like they take it so seriously now. They had this thing they did for thr fuck of it a couple time become huge thing by accident snd now they dont want to ruin it. Theyve alresdy dealt with their audience's hair triggers.

Because jumping on WOMENZ will always get you faggots to ignore any other complaint and ignore the actual content of the post

The complaint they give is always not so bad, though, in comparison to actual glaring flaws they don't mention.
The boat thing was fine in my book. That show has other problems. Like talking over one another, and that bird.

In fact, the guy who plays borky just generally needs to shut up for a minute. He's always the one to be like "oh, hold up, I want to talk about some bullshit like bit drops". Or just talk over other people.

Other than that, it's a pretty OK show.

I think what they’re going for is more of a faux-storytelling experience where the GM is in control of a lot of things, but unfortunately that leads to a very narrow view of what the medium is capable of.

At the end of the day, the lodge didn’t need to burn down to get mommas attention and Ned didn’t need to get a letter to think faking Bigfoot was a good idea.

Duck, I dunno.

Also griffin jumps on opportunities to make things more interesting rather than letting the dice decide, which I disagree with.

I think another major problem was how much SET UP and NON interaction Griffin needed

Like you could have opened with them all meeting and THEN flashback to like 10 minutes of backstory.

What are the best actual play podcasts?

Would prefer storygames, OSR, 5e, or the rare decent WoD/CofD campaign but I'm open to anything.

I guarantee that if anyone else had been hit, they would have been dealt 1 or 2 wound tops, he only did 3 because otherwise duck didn't get hurt.

Dice Camera Action is pretty entertaining, Chris Perkins is a good DM.

If you don't mind Star Trek, there's one that gets posted sometimes in /stg/

>good
He's good to watch, but his players are threadbare and terrified.
I feel like he could stand being slightly more merciful with them.

Sounds like mine, although I might of posted it in general podcast threads.

my phone getting confused about waifu

I ran a game with the same intensity, and I had my group break up because one player likes it and got frustrated at how paralyzed the other players got when things snowballed.

I could feel Griffin getting anxious about the Bible park cause muh diversity or whatever and I loved it.

Sounds like Clint had a lot of stuff fleshed out. But I definitely prefer his characters

Not getting into the characters is more about the limited time of these arcs I think.
Remy was garbage though.

Ned is a surprisingly great character. Clint nailed it. And I was so happy that he was like "uh no. Ned would fucking try to run these monsters over." I was pissed that Griffin didn't just let bigfoot get hit. That may be the worst railroading he's done yet

Do you guys have any suggestions for things to avoid if I'm just starting an RPG podcast?

Good editing goes a long way, so don’t skimp out on it. Also, I don’t know what the average listener is like, but I have trouble listening to DCA because of its slow pace.

Make sure audio quality is good as you early as you can, get a good show format down as early as you can, including any editing you'll be doing. Get good mics. Get pop filters if you need them. Work on making sure echo and background electronics noise isn't an issue. It obviously doesn't have to be studio quality, but it needs to be clean if.

Get some decent presentation too, make it look thematic.
Having some good role players is always good who make distinct characters.
Also I'd recommend audio editing as it really helps, as I can't listen to anything with shit audio, its just annoying.

Make sure to keep good energy too and make it interesting.

I took a bit of inspiration when I watched Roll play a few years ago, wanted to do something a bit like it, except not make the same mistakes.
Here is my deeply unknown, 5 person watching RPG playcast youtube.com/watch?v=LQR8s-FwrwU
I should shill more, but I ain't fucking making a reddit account just yet.

Take some notes of the style and hopefully use it to make your own. Also I'm going to run HERO shortly. is gonna be good and I'm getting 5 players for it.

>He needs to let people do things organically again. Like he needs to give his brothers and dad like 2 or 3 games to establish their characters.
They don't really have time for it when they're trying to do one short adventure.
>Like he's trying to FORCE it with this Amnesty arc by giving them so much solo focus but you don't build a character in a vacuum, you build it by bouncing of your other players.
It's pretty obvious that he didn't intend for them to take so long to meet up. Like, he assured them at the start of episode 2 that they'd meet within the episode, but it took until the middle of episode 3 for them to do so.
>Remy was garbage though.
Didn't help that he was literally just "Griffin but jumpgood".
>I was pissed that Griffin didn't just let bigfoot get hit. That may be the worst railroading he's done yet
Clint rolled a 12, man, and he wasn't trying to hit bigfoot. He never rolls well, so... just let him have this.

Bad audio quality. Edit out long pauses, bad jokes and boring rules discussions and lower audio spikes that occur when someone laughs och screams like a retard. Make sure your players know how microphones work how you want the podcast to sound like.

Yeah, he shouldn't be having rolls happen if he doesn't want to face their outcome. In D&D that's easier to sidestep, but in PbtA it's a big no-no. Especially with the fire, he should have just narrated it as such, sans dice.

Thanks for the advice. Our first episode episode has kinda shitty audio quality but we sorted it out for episode two. I think episode 3 or 4 is where I really started to get the hang of editing out math and other boring bits.

Run it through audacity man, take out the audio, apply a noise filter, put it back in, You can PM me on the youtubes if you need any more suggestions for quality, I'm all helping an user.

In the same way the others are basically shit at RPG mechanics, Griffin is shit at the idea of RPG's being games with players. He's a big storytelling goof, but he doesn't grasp the game part the way Justin and Travis do.

I haven't listened to all of Clint's Fate Core arc, but I'm excited for the other two brothers to run their own mini-campaigns in this experimental period of their show.

I really like Demipia (5e) and crudely drawn swords (DW)

A good way to learn mic technique is to just practice. Grab a book or a magazine for a text and read it, record it and try different angles and distances to see where it sounds best. And always remind yourself and your players until it's instinct.

If you like storygames, the Jankcast does stuff like Lady Blackbird and seems good.

There are a ton of places for WoD content, just google it.

After first listening to taz and then hearing APs where they actually are playing dnd, I have to say that unless you're a fuck who loves the other show the brothers do, taz is not very good aside from the music.

>and he wasn't trying to hit bigfoot

Wasn't he though? There was like 2 minutes of metagaming from ALL his kids about not killing what's obviously a good NPC. I was actually getting mad because I felt like Clint was trying to really get into character and they kind of all metagamed/railroaded it.

Even when Clint was like "no Ned thinks it's a dream, I'm just going with it and heading for them" they tried to stop him.

Maybe I'm remembering it wrong, might go listen again. But it's like both other players and the DM persuaded him to go against what his character would actually do.

Fuck, if I was 5 feet from my car and two monsters started fighting in front of me is either try and hit them with it or straight up drive outta there

If you want to hear an actually fun podcast, look at the Glass Cannon, they are playing PF's Giantslayer campaign and have 120+ episodes out. They have very good roleplaying and characterization, and there are a ton of dramatic moments.

The GM is a stickler for the system and actually following the rules, using the system to make the game more fun.

Of course, they still fuck up rules all the time. They have a regular segment called "We are Stupid" where they explain how they fucked up the rule in the last episode when they get feedback that they did.

They even got officially sponsored by Paizo last year. It's a damn good listen.

>Officially sponsored by Paizo
Thats not a good sign user...

Griffin asked "are you trying to hit them both? because it seems kind of implausible that he'd just hit the bobcat" and Clint said "well, he's a good driver and he's TRYING to hit the bobcat but he doesn't really give a shit if he hits them both, he thinks it's a dream".

I tried this. It's fucking PF for one, and the guys are the typical cunt kind of tabletop player

Ok that's a bit more reasonable. Maybe I was blurring details because they all spent so long goofing about it.

I still can't help but feel the line you quoted came after the 3 of them swaying him a bit, but again, I'd have to relisten. I'll just believe you

You mean like us?

Speak for yourself user

you've not been here very long have you?

Thrilling Intent on youtube has fun characters and good production values.

Averages are statistics. There's individual anons on this board who have shown themselves to be good players. Not everyone here is a murderhobo metagamer who'd rather basic-bitch-roleplay than play a game with believable characters and stakes.

I mean yeah.

Is it me or did Travis become the worst member of the podcast all of the sudden? All his new characters are annoying and the voices he does for them are even worse.

He's got Taako envy
He's jealous that Taako became the defacto star and so he's trying really hard to push himself each game

I've been listening to Friends at the Table, and their DM, Austin, is pretty great, but the players and their actions can be pretty grating sometimes

I think the thing is, TAZ is built solely around cinematic and narrative driven games. Griffin clearly seems to enjoy his role as story teller, and his family are very obviously not die hard players, so combine the players loosey goosey attitude with a podcast setting, where entertainment is key, and you get very rules light sessions where Travis, Justin and Clint give Griffin the reigns. It's likely why they only play these kind of games together and for their show, as they don't seem interested in buckling down to learn the rules fully and memorizing dice rolls and such and working with a much more player focused game.

>Is it me or did Travis become the worst member of the podcast all of the sudden?
I've actually really liked him so far as Duck Newton. Sort of a 'too stoic for their own good' thing going on. Reminds me a bit of Tommy Lee Jones in No Country for Old Men.

Travis isn't Duck, Justin is. Travis is the magician chick

Wait, right, shit. Nevermind then.

That's Justin, Travis plays Aubrey in the new game

>Ned is a surprisingly great character

I think I like him so much because he's basically pic related

Whenever they give Clint more freedom with character creation he always comes up with gems. I hope he gets to DM more games in the future.

Justin always plays the best characters. Perfect mix of serious and jokes, with each character feeling different from the last.

Ill admit episode one of balance Taaco made me mad, I was thinking he was just memes but then he became the best character, with good motivations and interesting backstory.

I thought the exact same thing when he was introducing the character! Its a great fit for Clint.

Griffin isn't the best DM, and I really want him to let them off the rails more. But he's better than Travis for sure and while Clint's world was really interesting, I don't think he has enough to pull the game as a gm. He works best with his sons, playing the support character.

I feel like Griffin can do a better job as a DM in a bigger setting and game, rather than these small scale quick shots, where the guys are supposed to pretty much get from point a to point b in a few episodes

God, Why would you want to be more like Taako? Taako was the worst part of Balance, narrowly edging out Lup, aka Taako but Trans and less screen time.

Taako had his moments, but I thought he was fun and pretty good in a lot of moments, but honestly Magnus was the best party member and his epilogue actually had me tearing up

Because Taako was a wizard and Magnus was a fighter.
It's not really Taako envy more as WIZARD envy. His last two characters were basically "I DON'T WANT TO BE A FIGHTER ANYMORE"

Like the rest said, get god audio. You could be the funniest motherfuckers ever, but if I can't hear you it doesn't matter

Also not an avoid thing just a tip, if you want to actually gain any amount of traction, play any other game than D&D. The fanbase will grovel at your knees for actually having a podcast about their favourite game

btw I would totally suck your dick if you used GURPS

Yeah, and his running joke was "I attack like seven times, it's the only thing I can do"

I wonder if season 2 will have the same cast, or new characters.

I think Friends at the Table (the only other one I've listened to besides TAZ so far) has the right idea where they just play indie RPGs and stuff, even if most are Apocalypse games

>Yeah, and his running joke was "I attack like seven times, it's the only thing I can do"
I think the "this is what I do" stuff was more because everyone was always like, "Shit, more attacks?!" rather than him lamenting, "I can't ever do anything else."

I haven't listened to Travis' arc, what was it like?

He has yet to do it, but it's a western game. It's called Grit, or Dirt, or Dust, or something like that? Some four-letter word.

I like Glass Cannon because all of the players are at worst decent roleplayers and the DM likes twisting the knife when they fuck up

I fell off glass cannon because the DM has a nasty habit of "using" character families by killing them off and replacing them with new characters.

At one point, like when he first started getting a ton of attacks, he said something along the lines of "Meryl and Taako have all these spells to use, all I can do is attack"

Troy is pretty bad about that, I'm hoping he improves one day. Otherwise the show on the whole has been pretty enjoyable.

>Not getting into the characters is more about the limited time of these arcs I think.
Fair enough I guess, and I also didn't like Remy. I like Griffin as a dude but him trying to always play as the confident version of himself is annoying.

I was worried Ned was pretty much just gonna be Merle again and to be honest I haven't felt like he isn't yet. But I love the setting of Amnesty in general. I love the paranormal West Virginia type shit and the monster is cool and I like the system.

I just didn't like how long it took for the family to meet up. I feel like that would have been better than trying to set up backstories separately. Griffin seems huge on trying to replicate the "lore" part of Balance but that shit didn't come out fully formed, it was developed as they played together. Having the boys not interacting with each other through so much is totally throwing away their biggest strength as entertainers I think. I like when the world gets built off of stupid throwaway jokes like Jake Coolice.

What is Adventure Zone and what have them done?

People would rather watch The Last Jedi than read Chronicles of Prydain. People are stupid.

>Unexpetables

Tell me about this. It sounds like a dumpster fire and I love dumpster fires.

Figure out a file naming convention with at least 3 digits that'll work in order and stick with it. I don't need to be bulk renaming your files before I can even start listening.

>ratings
>podcast

What?

>What is Adventure Zone and what have them done?
Adventure Zone is a podcast by three brothers and their dad. They initially did a big D&D campaign which was a bit railroady but has enough production value and charisma that it doesn't matter. They brothers also do the comedy 'advice' podcast My Brother My Brother and Me together, and each also does one or two other podcasts with other people.

They also did a streaming TV miniseries of My Brother My Brother and Me, which is free on...whatever site it was that bought out Seeso's content when it tanked, it slips my mind. But the show is gold and a good way to get a handle on their style.

So did Clint's superhero arc get good eventually? I listened to the character intros and the first episode and loathed all the characters they were running.

>whatever site it was that bought out Seeso's content when it tanked, it slips my mind. But the show is gold and a good way to get a handle on their style.

Apparently VRV, which is also a fucking dead end joke.

What sort of characters did they run?

Griffin was essential himself but a hacker and jumping powers.
Travis was cold and rude scientist lady who could shapeshift.
Justin was small timid HR woman who transformed into huge boisterous thunder goddess.

Justin was great but I didn't really care about the other 2.

Things get more fun, but like others have observed it seems like it'd be a better fit for a longer-term campaign than what it got. The opening's too long, the ending is a little rushed. It's pretty much always clear Fate doesn't really resonate with them.

Anyone else upset that Griffin didn't go with his initial plans for this arc? Like a year ago he said the west virgina small town campaign would have been Persona inspired, and have them all playing high school students. While Duck and Ned are pretty decent (Aubry I don't give a fuck about) I'm kinda upset they didn't go with the original idea.

Duck is Justin's waifu?

>excited for more adventure zone
>Justin and Clint are the only good members now
>every time a new character is brought up they mention something about being diverse or having a moment that just screams 'IM GAY YOU GUYS THIS TIME MY CHARACTER IS GAY'
What went wrong?

They interacted with the fan base, who were WAY into Taako but "could you please not make him racist because I headcanon him as latin but his name seems racist because of it even though it was a joke name he came up with for a one off"

Travis did an arc for a paid arc called taz nights
Steam punk esque dnd world.

It wasn't great

I'm one episode in and sick of this arc already, at least they kept the flow going with D&D, just get back to a good system

I love the McElroys, and I don't consider them "SJWs" or any of their ilk, but they do have some mannerisms and attitudes of the tumblrite crowd that makes me cringe. Like Lup being a male elf who identifies as female in a world where they have super science and casual magic, and she could just become female. Or all the drama over Taakos name, and his fucking skin color, or all the homosexual relationships with NPCs and Taako, I mean it's fine, but it just felt forced each time.

The Unexpectables is a game run by the sister of a voice actor for Teamfourstar.
The players are
1. The brother/voice actor
2. An art friend of the channel
3. GOOMBA'S GOT BACK
4. A c-lister friend of the brother

They play an Orc Barbarian, a Kobold Ranger, a weeb Kenku Rogue, and a Tiefling Bard.

The Orc and Kenku are constantly trying to steal focus whenever they can, The Orc because the player realizing he's got a class that ONLY HITS THING, and the Kenku because he feel inadequate compared to everyone else.

The story revolves around a magical city and the group fighting a demigod who is MAGICALLY STRONGER THAN ALL OTHER GODS BECAUSE OF A LOOP HOLE AND CAN LITERALLY HIJACK THE SUN GOD JUST BY TEMPING ONE OF THEIR ASSIMARS.

>Travis is basically waifu inserting

Imagine if you're dm was streaming that shit. What do you do, argue on stream? Correct him? You just roll with the punches I guess.

Sounds awful desu