Share a great stream/actual play.

This is a tough one. I don’t watch or listen to a ton of actual plays. The ones that really interest me are of games that have captured my attention. Often they are ones that my friends produce.

I am very fond of the annotated actual plays that the Runeslinger YouTube channel puts out from time to time. ~ These are labor intensive, but give a great behind the scenes look into what is really going on. Likewise, I have become very fond of actual plays that include or are followed by reflections videos and discussions. This inside look that is provided via these commentaries and discussions can be invaluable to those considering a game or those struggling to learn it.

I have good friends who produce polished and professional streams and actual plays and take great pride in it. ~ I know why they do this, and the final product is aesthetically more pleasing than a simple plug & play stream on Hangouts, but I have a different take.

Tonight I played in a game ran by JdrD30 AKA Francois Letarte, who introduced me to online play during BrigadeCon 2016 when he invited me to play in a Game using the  RPGS setting. Tonight we did the same thing in a different country in the RPGS book & a different system. (This has been an ongoing project of his). Tonight’s game was fun, and we streamed it live on Hangouts.

What my initial experience with Francois showed me was that I could play online too, & that there was literally no barrier to entry. Sure, Hangouts is notoriously clunky & suffers from audio difficulties (which mostly show up as only one person being able to talk at a time), but it’s a no brainer to use. ~ Streams with discord & open broadcast software look prettier, but if that’s what I was exposed to at first, with all of the extra steps & requirements, I don’t think I would have been confident enough to take the plunge into online gaming. And if I hadn’t done that, I would have missed out on so many great games & players.

So at the end of the day, the stream that wins my vote is the one that when the inexperienced guy or gal watches it, it makes them think “I could do that too”.