What I am listening to these days...

 Recently I have been listening to Errant Adventures, which is a soloplay of the Ironsworn Starforged RPG.  It's a great show - intelligent, well edited and the host has a natural sense of storytelling.  It's not unlike Me, Myself & Die but in audio, so it's no wonder I dig it (btw, if you have not yet discovered Me, Myself & Die... boy are you in for a treat).

Got me thinking: here's yet another rpg podcast that appeals to me (I find it really hard to find the right tone) that is, coincidentally, a soloplay.  I'm not being facetious here.  I really don't care if a pod is solo or group.  Actually, I'd prefer a group pod.  Just seems the ones I enjoy most are solo.  So... why?

Jose of RPGTips and I talked this over recently.  Seems that if, like me, you like your fantasy to be 'serious', then the chance of finding a group pod is very slim.  It's hard to not goof and joke in a social setting.  If you make a pod, and you goof and joke, the feeling must be that more jokes = better.  Eventually, it's not even D&D (TAZ, Dungeons & Daddies - both amazing shows, but, not really DnD).

So what's in my ears these days?

Errant Adventures

The Iron Realm

Dungeons & Daddies (not serious at all, but funny, smart, incredibly good)

Ask the Oracle

Threat Dice

Dr. Gameshow (not rpg related)

Strong Songs (not rpg related)

The Ongoing History of New Music (not rpg related)

Roleplay Rescue

Tales of Mystara

The Cast Perilous

The Old Ways

Those are just a few (yeah, I pretty much permanently have earbuds in)

What are you listening to?  Any great recs you can share? I'd love to discover more great pods!

Shownotes for Episode 29

 Ep 29

Theme                                     Evan King - Enchiridion https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a8NkG3bhIxU

Welcome                                  148 Barovian Castle https://tabletopaudio.com/

Previously On                          Scott Buckley - Legionnaire https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NwW0vFUCzEM

Part 1                                       Hiraeth - Scott Buckley https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iZdPxAXsd5k and

Part 1                                       Odin https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1XddzQIaRIU

Combat                                    RPG SOUNDS “The Boss is Here”

Some  FX:                                https://www.zapsplat.com

Another free-to-use loopable bit of score

 I need to start giving these compositions real names!  Well, here's another.  More to come in the next few weeks.  Use it if you like it.  Please credit me in your liner notes if you publish anything using it.  Thanks.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SrtfBS1JCsc&t=1s

Post-Interview Thoughts

 It was a real treat getting to talk with Abel Enzo of the Iron Realm, recently.  I'm just such a fan of what he has made, so talking to him was a huge thrill.  A year ago, when I was tearing through his available catalog, I never would have thought I would be chatting with him and comparing notes.

And it turned out to be quite a comparison.  We have very different approaches - which is noteworthy only insofar as there are so few people telling stories this (procedural) way.

If you missed the interview, Abel has a kind of ABABABABAB method where he games live, records it all, and then reflects and writes additional/expansion script after that.  When everything is edited down, you get the show.  I think a kind of feedback loop starts to happen and one section influences the next, and so on and so on.

My process is different.  Mine is AAAAAAAAAAAAAA.  I just sit down and start writing (or 'playing' ... there's no difference) and make rolls as they are needed.  When I get up from my desk I have a section of script.  I'll walk away from it, think it over, go to work, sleep on it, chew it over in my mind and come back to pick up where I left off.  By then I will have rejected a few unoriginal ideas and, quite often, I will have remembered something that happened earlier in the story that should influence the current situation in-game.

In the end, Abel's dice-rolls and a good chunk of his gaming are 'live' and mine are not.  Both ways are effective, I think.  I wonder if there are even more ways one could make this work.  Go 100% live and you have most actual-plays.  I guess I'm at the extreme opposite end.  What's the opposite of 'actual-play'?

Shownotes for Bonus Material #3 Behind the Scenes

 Slow Motion by Bensound: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d31a1f2LcnE

Shownotes for Ep 28

 Theme                                    Evan King - Enchiridion https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a8NkG3bhIxU

Welcome                                 148 Barovian Castle https://tabletopaudio.com/

Previously On                          Scott Buckley - Legionnaire https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NwW0vFUCzEM

Part 2 & 3                                Odin https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1XddzQIaRIU

Combat                                    RPG SOUNDS “The Boss is Here”

Dramatis                                  RPG SOUNDS “Realization”

Some  FX:                                https://www.zapsplat.com

Map of party progress towards the Arleg Waar

 

Random Encounter Table for The Foothills

 Roll 2d8

 

         

2       3-6 hobgoblins

3       Exceptional/magical terrain feature

4       1-2 Wild Boars

5       – special NPC(s) (ranger, hermit, wizard, etc?)

6       an abandoned campsite, only 2 days old.

7       2-4 bugbears

8       3-6 gnolls

9       3-6 wolves

10     1 Ogre

11     Owlbear

12     2-4 deer (non aggressive/food only)

13     Black Bear

14     Strange/Symbols or totems

15     Ancient graveyard/barrow mound

16     4-8 Orcs

 

*Items in italics can only be encountered once

Revisiting the Past

 I've been spending my extra time by slowly replacing old crappy audio - recorded with a mic I repaired and then convinced myself was 'warm sounding' because I was so happy it worked - on my oldest episodes.  Some parts, where I have scripted the narrative, are fairly easy and straightforward to work with.  Others, where I have adlibbed stuff (combat mostly) is a painstaking process of listen, repeat, replace.  I am trying to alter very little because my only goal is to improve audio quality.  I have trimmed a couple of cringe-worthy bits along the way though.

Speaking of cringe... why didn't anyone tell me I sound like McLovin in eps 0-4?  Ugh.

Doing this work, I have come to appreciate a couple of things.  The first is that podcasts which are fully adlibbed/improvised (as are most) would be impossible to 'repair' in this way.  I'm grateful that I even have the option to tidy up the lobby, so to speak.  The second is that I had lost sight of just how... basic (forgive the pun) my podcast was when I started out.  The first few eps are just so plain.  I had forgotten: when I started out I had no idea what I was doing, story-wise.  It's equal parts: fascinating, humiliating, endearing... I dunno.  My point is only that TOTM has come a long way in a year (it was exactly one year ago that I started work on the show even though I didn't publish until April).  It's a bit like looking at old pictures of yourself from high school and going: oh dear.... but still.... OK.

Carrion Crawler Art?

 

More MirrorLab fun

 Started out as a sketch of Harl...

I wish I could draw...

 ... but I can't.  I can, however, turn my worse-than-mediocre sketches into something pretty wild with the mirrorlab app.  Here's what I did with a doodle of Umura. Cool, hey?

Shownotes for Episode 27

 Theme                                     Evan King - Enchiridion https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a8NkG3bhIxU

Welcome                                  148 Barovian Castle https://tabletopaudio.com/

Previously On                          Scott Buckley - Legionnaire https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NwW0vFUCzEM

Part 3                                       ‘Labyrinth of Lost Dreams’ by Darren Curtis

https://soundcloud.com/desperate-measurez/labyrinth-of-lost-dreams-free

Some  FX:                                https://www.zapsplat.com