Listen to this episode here.
It's a new series on Dice Exploder all about actual play. For five episodes, instead of breaking down one mechanic, we're going to break down one moment from one actual play show. And to kick things off, I'm joined by actual play critic and all-around-writer Rowan Zeoli of Rascal and Polygon. We cover an overview of actual play as a medium and the current state of the scene, we dig deep into the fine line this medium walks between fiction and nonfiction, and then we get to our moment: the very beginning of My First Dungeon's six episode miniseries on Orbital Blues. How can you make the most of those precious opening moments when there's so much to establish?
Further Reading
Orbital Blues by Sam Sleney, Joshua Clark, and Zachary Cox
My First Dungeon: Orbital Blues episode 1
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Rowan on Bluesky and Rascal News
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Transcript
Sam: Hello, and welcome to another episode of Dice Exploder. Each week we take a tabletop mechanic and stream about it on Twitch. My name is Sam Donal, and this is the first episode of a Dice Exploder mini series, all about actual play. Instead of covering one mechanic each week, we are gonna cover one moment from one actual play.
And to kick us off, I'm pleased to welcome back to the show, Rowan Zeoli. You may remember, Rowan from 2020 four's, year end Bonanza here on the show, or from her writing at Polygon or Rascal, the Tabletop Gaming news site. Subscribe to Rascal.
I wanted to kick off this series with Rowan because she's one of the few people out there who I know has actually done serious actual play reviews and criticism, much of which you can read on Rascal or Polygon. And so I thought she'd be a good person for an overview of the medium and community around it as it currently stands. What is it? What's the current state of it? How do we feel about it?
We spend a lot of time breaking down the odd combination of fiction and nonfiction that's almost inherent to the medium. and then we properly get into the conceit of this series with a moment all about starting things off the very beginning of the show. My first Dungeons Orbital Blues series we get into what we're looking for as audience members and as critics in those precious opening moments of a show that may or may not hook you in for the long haul.
So let's get into it. Thanks to everyone as Sports Dice Exploder on Patreon, and here is Rowan Zeoli with an Orbital Blues beginning.
Sam: Rowan Zeoli. Welcome back to Dice Exploder.
Rowan: Thank you for having me back. I'm so excited to be here again. And also a little more functional than the last time I was on your show. I was a little bit burnt out and going crazy at the end of last year.
Sam: I don't remember that at all. I remember you saying very smart things, Oh, thank you. Listen, I'm a performer. What can I say?
Well, I'm excited to have you back to talk about performance today to kick off our little actual play series here on Dice Exploder.
Rowan: at that seguey. Incredible.
Sam: I the reason I wanted to kick off this whole series with you in the first place is like, I wanna start with like, what's the deal with, actual play?
Like, actual play, I think conjures of a very specific image in people's minds, like in our slice of the community, anyone who's played D&D, even, like, they know what actual play looks like for a definition of actual play.
So I wanna start with like, what is that core thing that people imagine when you say actual, play, what's first of mind?
Rowan: yeah. Well, I think the first thing most people think of when you say actual play is, what are you talking about? I think that is typically the first thing, but then once you get past that, you know where people play D&D.
I think what most people think about when they think of actual play is a show. That is fictional, that is told through the playing of D&D, where you are watching the story being told through the playing of the game and the story of the people at the table playing the game and watching those two parallel stories kind of going down side by side.
Sam: Yeah.
Yeah, I, I love that you immediately brought up what I think of as the, like undersung, but really most unique part of actual play, which is that you are doing that like fiction track and that nonfiction track. at the same time. I've already recorded like other episodes in this series and like, we talk about this idea a lot. But I think that that it's so, I don't know. Yeah, I don't know what to say about it, it's just, it's
Rowan: I think it, I think it's so interesting. I think it's also really telling of kind of where we're at culturally, where what people are interested in in their media.
There is something really interesting about people wanting a story that is emergent, that isn't kind of what they had planned. Like it's not a TV show, it's not a film, it's not like predicted. It can't really be spoiled in that same way 'cause it's being emergent.
You can kind of create this fan culture around it of like, Ooh, I have all these theories about these characters and these people playing them. And like that is a whole other element that we're not really gonna get into.
But then there is the element of like wanting to see the creative process and feel tapped into that creative process that I think people are really itching for.
Sam: Yeah.
I think they also we talked about how, we weren't gonna go too deep on para sociality as a concept. Like I really could do a whole episode and screed on that. But I think they also do really wanna be connected to the artists involved, right? Like, they want to feel like they have a, a say in the process.
And like, you see that not just in actual play, but in like. Marvel movies, right? Like, like that the fandom as an idea at large in culture has become so predominance.
Rowan: Yeah, absolutely.
Sam: But I, you, know, this is, dice exploder, so I wanna get into specific examples, like, right fucking away. yeah, so I thought maybe we could start with some of the examples from a few years ago. when the Diana Jones Award in 2018 gave their award to the concept of actual
Rowan: Mm. yes, the Diana Jones Awards, which as we learned, hates journalists and didn't give it to us or Charlie Hall. It's fine.
Sam: Yeah. You mean Rascal? Of course when you say
Rowan: Yes, of course.
Sam: yeah.
but they had a list of what I think of as like a pretty. Comprehensive, like, biggest hitters circa 2018 in actual play.
So they mention Critical Role, a weekly show for Geek and Sundry, the Adventure Zone, a biweekly show for Maximum Fun. Maze Arcana. The One Shot Podcast and Campaigns podcast by James Dato and Kat Murphy on One Shot Network, and a variety of shows produced by Hyper RPG. Never heard of hyper RPG
Rowan: They, they've done colic which is like super weird, super experimental stuff. But yeah.
Sam: Oh, sick. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then of course since 2018, Dimension 20 has become an enormous presence in the scene, and I would add Worlds Beyond Number as the sort of like spinoff of Dimension 20 as like really heavy hitters in the world.
So, I don't know, like do you want to take any of these specific examples, and like break down what's interesting about them?
Rowan: Yeah, absolutely. I think it's also a little fucked up. They didn't include Friends at the Table which was so important to the development of actual play. Like the adventure zone doesn't really exist without Friends at the Table being what it is.
But I think so that's a good pathway into this because you have critical role, which is again, voice actors making a show with their voice actor friends on Geek and sundry. And like you can go to Em Friedman who has written and talked about critical role extensively about the circumstances and why they got popular and like it being the platform of Twitch and like the moment in time,
Sam: And Em is the predominant actual place scholar, like an actual tenured professor, as of a couple months ago. Who studies this stuff? Yeah.
Rowan: Yeah. And she's incredible and has written really extensively on this, the Adventure Zone, the McElroy brothers, two of them, Griffin and Justin being the founders of Polygon, which I, in many ways owe my career to them, which is so strange.
But them being like, oh, we're gonna do this secondary show as a spinoff, as like a little gag for our main show, My Brother, My Brother and Me, which is their their Talk podcast where they answer questions. And that relies less on the game and more on just them being kind of idiots with each other.
You have the One Shot Podcast and campaigns, which was formerly hosted by James Dato and is now hosted by my roommate, Dillin Apelyan.
And that is a that, Yeah. So
Sam: the one shot I know was coming like really strongly out of the Chicago comedy scene and like the podcast scene sort of attached to that.
Rowan: absolutely. Yeah. And that's where we start to see improv and comedy kind of moving in because James Dato comes from that scene. And that is where campaigns is a long form show much more in the tradition of critical role, which I think doesn't necessarily, maybe not predates it, but comes at around the same time.
And then one Shot is a more of an anthology show that is trialing different games in shortened little bursts , one of the original ones alongside Jeff Stormer Show Party of One, which also has been running for nine, almost 10 years now.
And then hyper RPG, which made kollok and a couple of other shows that really tried to play with the form of actual play, did a lot of prescripted stuff, did a lot of like, really high production value, which we're seeing kind of downstream in the work of like panic table. And there's, there's some interesting stuff happening there production wise.
And then there is Penny Arcade, which was not the og
Sam: But like they were like the OG wizards of the coast sponsored
Rowan: Yes, because it was Chris Perkins. And literally being like, we're gonna play this at Pax and we are going to play three, I think it was 3.5 and then
Sam: so I, I remember this 'cause I was in college when this started coming out. And I worked at the library. So I would just, I was desperate for any podcasts. 'cause the only podcast that existed were this American Life and, wait, wait, don't tell me.
And they started putting out this sponsored recording of the Penny Arcade guys playing D&D fifth edition. but It was like a promo thing for the like original play test draft of fifth Edition is where it started.
They might have actually done. Fourth
Rowan: They might have
Sam: I'm thinking about it. Yeah. I think they did fourth and then at one point like changed dimensions to Fifth Edition, but it was definitely fourth edition, not third.
And yeah, they did this interesting thing, like it very much started as a podcast, but then eventually became these live shows at Pax in front of enormous audiences, and then became the kind of like prerecorded pre edited in a studio with a bunch of cameras thing that Dimension 20 built, its back on.
Rowan: Yeah, and it's very much the about the game. It is about playing Dungeons and Dragons and not about the story you are telling while playing the game.
Sam: Yeah.
Although it felt also like one component of come on into the Penny Arcade offices. Right? Like in parallel with putting out this show, they were doing like a documentary series about like what the office was like at Penny Arcade and like a weird reality show to like sponsor a cartoonist to come like work in their offices and like make a new web comic and, you know, stuff like that. And it felt very much like this was of a piece, it was one ingredient in that, like wider selection of shows. I don't read or listen to anything Penny arcade these days, but did a lot back in 2014. Right.
So I, I don't know how it's evolved. But I do know the other like big shift in actual play was lockdown and the pandemic where everyone kind of went inside and like everyone in our hobby, I think kind of like had passing familiarity with like Critical Role, The Adventure Zone, maybe Dimension 20 had like just been starting to get started.
And it suddenly became this great way to socialize with your friends and to still perform, to just like start up a twitch stream and like do your actual play.
And so I then, like in the early 2020s, we had this giant wave of people getting into actual play and also like people who in my mind, not everyone was doing this. Many people were just like, well, we're playing anyway. Let's broadcast our thing on Twitch. This'll be fun and like, that's great.
There were also many people who were like, and we are gonna be famous. Like this is gonna be how we're like all making our money in a few years, and like that really has not happened for anyone.
Rowan: Yeah. I think there is that, that kind of schism that happens where they're like, oh, I've now seen the success of other like groups. Maybe we can get our fame and success.
And then there's like that also element of we can make art in this new art form. We can tell stories in a unique way. We can get access to an audience in ways that we couldn't through traditional mediums where like you have to get a producer, you have to get money, you have to get a film set, you have to get all these things.
Whereas like if you have a webcam, an internet connection, and a microphone, and sometimes not even a microphone, you can stream a D&D game or you can stream another tabletop game.
And so it did create a level of accessibility, which then also creates its own problems and saturation issues and discoverability
issues.
Sam: You know, I remember. I'm having a sense memory come back to me of trying to stream my home game D&D group in 2007 of like, like back in like high school. Um, yeah. The instincts of like trying to put this online because wouldn't that be neat? Really is like a primal one once you get streaming technology.
I
Rowan: you had an
IRE vision of the future.
Sam: My, my friend was like really involved with a video game review website. I want to say Destructoid.
Rowan: Mm,
Sam: And they were doing like a fundraising thing where they were sort of like, it was like community centered and like they were doing like a fundraising thing and just like, Hey, does anyone have anything they can stream? And he was like, well, I'm supposed to be playing D&D during this time. Can we like do that?
And I remember we had all these conversations about like, how is this gonna work? What's this gonna look like? Can you just like put the laptop at the end of the table and like stream? And like, I think that's what we did. I'm sure it was miserable, but yeah, I don't know. Interest. Interesting memory coming back to me.
Rowan: I was nine,
Sam: yeah. Well, fuck you. Um, But so wanted to like talk about I feel like after a couple years of lockdown, we like had enough data to actually answer the question, like, what draws people to long form ap?
Because it clearly wasn't just like regularity or like people doing a good job. It was like people with established audiences who like, were doing this as a way for you to like check in with them regularly, right?
Like it does feel to me like that kind of nonfiction relationship with the show is really what was bringing people into these things. Does that feel right to you?
Rowan: I think for it as content, yes. Like I think you get like Smosh D&D, you get like Source Fed D&D, you get Rooster Teeth D&D, like you get all of these like nerd channels on the internet making that kind of content. And that is absolutely the case.
But then I think it doesn't quite track with Critical Role because I think most of the people who came to critical role weren't fans of the people first, but fell in love with them over the course of time. And I think that's really it.
Something that Em Friedman said to me in an interview I did with her a couple years ago was that every actual play is a love story and that it is the act of falling in love with the story and the people telling the story that gets people there.
And so, yeah, if you are already in love with these people and like the loosest definition of the term love, if you're in love with the the projections and ideas they place themselves, then it's gonna be a lot easier for that to hit off immediately. But if the personalities on screen or in your ears are easy to love or are identifiable and relatable to you, you are able to do that.
And I think we see that kind of with the success of Transplanar as being like trans people of color who largely had not been able to have those spaces to see themselves reflected in tabletop media. And so despite the fact that these individuals were not necessarily known prior to the show happening, but they started during the pandemic, they were an access point, it was very easy for people to see themselves in these performers and fall in love with them that way, and then build an audience through that.
Sam: Mm-hmm. Okay. So, I've heard of Transplanar, but I have not thought of them as sort of like in the same league as like critical role in some other, the, like largest shows like that. And it is. You know, I've heard M Friedman also talk about like, Critical Role was bringing in some kind of audiences, you know, like people who, this was back in like when twitter was influential enough that you could like really bring in an audience from it. Right.
But I'm I'm curious. Like I have often said to get an audience for actual play, you have to already be famous at something else. Like you have to like already be bringing in your audience. And if you're saying that like the critical role people didn't really do that and the trans explainer people haven't necessarily had to do that, like what do you think, worked about them building an audience that has not worked for hundreds of other shows?
Rowan: yeah. I think the important distinction there as well is the differentiation between visibility and financial success. Yeah,
Sam: Yeah. Sure.
Rowan: because critical role made financial success. Definitely through the fact that they had the connections in the industry. They were able to have the Geek and Sundry connections. They knew the folks over at Happy Jacks RPG, which has been running for a very long time.
One of my, like first interviews with Rascal, actually was with Kimmie Hughes of Happy Jacks talking about how Matt Mercer, like they would all go to Ren fairs together, and Matt Mercer had this dream to make a D&D TV show.
And so those connections were there. They had their voice acting cred, so they had their cosplaying cred. They did bring those in. But the fact that they got put on the front page of Twitch with the like financial support of geek and sundry. Is the thing that made them money and made them become an empire. And also the lack of saturation in the industry.
Transplanar, while not necessarily financially successful, has made waves artistically. And in terms of their community. Like you can see the ripple effect of Transplanar in seeing the downstream effects of the types of shows that have been made in response to Transplanar, in response to like in artistic movement that has made.
And so you're operating in this dual ecosystem of like the nature of capital and the idea of like who's gonna make money, and then the artistic world of like, who's not gonna make money, but who's gonna make influential art for other artists? Yeah.
Sam: What counts as success. right? Yeah, totally.
You were talking in there about like the story of Critical Role is like a love story of like falling in love with the cast essentially. And it's so interesting to me to think about that and think like, you know, that's actually also the story of The Office, right? Of like me, like building Frazier into my daily routine of just like that comfortable thing that I watch over lunch or dinner or whatever.
And. And it's, it's just, it's very interesting to me. that this medium is taking that thing and making it text as opposed to subtext.
Rowan: Yeah, absolutely. 'cause I think that's what works about long form shows or shows that are maybe not long form, but with a consistent cast is this idea that you get to see over the course of time these relationships develop.
Like critical role exists within the tradition of like a soap opera, right? It exists within the tradition of reality show. It exists within these really long form narrative traditions that are I have seen these people doing a thing for now a decade, and I've built that relationship with them. For so many people it's every Thursday they have shown up, and for four to six hours have watched these people play a game.
And like you said, there are people who go to sleep watching The Office every day. There are people who go to sleep watching Friends like those kinds of long form running shows because they've fallen in love with the characters and the people playing them. Yeah.
Sam: Yeah.
Rowan: My last big picture thought that I have here is that there are so many different lineages of actual play. We're at a point now where there is a real divergence in the types of actual play people are making. There is the actual play for content. There is the long form soap opera, actual play. There is the anthology actual play. But now people are playing with like the scales of fiction nonfiction.
Like Dark Dice is a good example of a show that has like no nonfiction in it, that is entirely edited. You have voices in the wood, which again is, is nonfiction in the style of fiction, but isn't what you would traditionally call an actual play because it's in the style of a radio show.
You're having people play with the form and evolve it
Sam: Yeah. Jeff Stormer is increasingly reframing Party of One it's an interview show.
Rowan: Yeah. We talked about how it's the Hot Ones of tabletop games. Like that's brilliant, and I'm so excited to see it continue to develop in all of these various ways. I think that's gonna be the most interesting thing to watch as it continues to, even though there's so many difficulties to people still being able to make it and burning out and not being able to sustain it for a many number of reasons.
Sam: Yeah. Well allegedly we're gonna talk on every episode of this series about like one particular moment from an actual play and like break that moment down.
And today you wanted to bring in the opening moment of a show so that we could talk about beginnings and kicking things off. yeah, and that's what we're gonna do, we're gonna talk about the very beginning of My First Dungeons Orbital Blues series.
But to do that, first we have to talk about My First Dungeon. What is My First Dungeon?
Rowan: Yeah. So disclaimer Elliot Davis, one of the owners of Many Sided Media, is my roommate.
Sam: Yeah. This show is also on the many sided network of which My First Dungeon is one of the founding shows. Brian Flaherty and Elliot Davis are gonna be on this podcast next week talking about another episode of my first dungeon. So like we can maybe breeze through a little bit of this 'cause they'll really get into it next week.
But what's the format of the show?
Rowan: The show is an anthology series. They play 4 to 6 usually episode arcs of a single game. They typically get those games sponsored by the company that made those games. So that's how their financial model works. And they're able to highlight the system and a different system every time with a rotating core cast of the four of them Elliot Davis, Brian Flaherty Abigail Hepworth and Shenuque Tissera.
And then they bring in familiar faces that tend to come in. Like in Orbital Blues there's Carolyn Page, of dropout notoriety. You also get DRAC Draconics, who is very well known in the actual play space for being a producer, for working on things. And so that's, their whole thing is doing
Sam: yeah. Well, and specifically like it started as a show where it was like, we are gonna teach you how to play the game, and we'll kick off with like the DM and the designer of the game, walking you through tips for how to run the game. Then we'll do our series, then we'll do a debrief episode and like talk about how it went and bring the designer back in for that. And they're still doing that format.
It's interesting, again, we talk about this a little bit more next week, but it's been interesting to watch how that started as very like hands-on, practical kind of premise and has evolved into a very like sound produced, fiction, more aspirational rather than informational kind of show.
Rowan: For sure. It keeps that balance in a very interesting way. It definitely leans way more towards the produced it. They're making a show and that's very clear.
But something they do that's I think, pretty unique is they do keep a lot of the faff in, they keep in a lot of that relationship building, a lot of the, blemishes I would say of playing a game where you're that talking over the table of being like, what the fuck are you doing? And just kind of like that, that comradery element that I
Sam: Yeah.
Rowan: a lot of people to tabletop games.
Sam: Yeah. Something I wanna to jump out back into a little bit more of a big picture. Something. I think is really interesting about actual play is how the most successful shows tend to be Long form campaign shows. Dimension 20 is more operating on this shorter series thing, but Critical Role is like the natural thing. Acquisitions incorporated at Penny Arcade was doing that like super long campaigns.
Super long campaigns are so goddamn hard to get into, like watching because I mean the, the, I think one of the biggest barriers to entry of actual play in the first place is that the individual episodes are so long and keeping current is just what an effort, what a like huge chunk of your life it is to do that.
And on the other hand, like that's also the draw. Like the draw is you're gonna like, come back every week and spend a good chunk of time with these people.
And so I find the shorter series that shows like My First Dungeon in Dimension 20 do to be much more accessible to me as a potential audience member because there's so many more entry points into the thing. But also, you know, there's a push and pull there. I'm curious if you have thoughts on that push and pull.
Rowan: Yeah, I think it is very true. I think it's really easy to get people in at the beginning, if you're just starting out, you're like, okay, here we are. There's not much for you to binge. 'cause we live in this binging culture that has evolved because of streaming services.
And now we're seeing a real rejection of that where people want things to come out once a week and they are really frustrated that you only get 10 episodes to explore things and they want the quote unquote filler episodes. 'cause that's what makes them feel human.
And so you have this balance of the reactionary pendulum swing of media where the systems that make and produce actual play are just people trying their best to make something they can enjoy and do well.
Which an ongoing long form show is actually really difficult, I think, to maintain, because yeah, it's really hard as an audience member to maintain it, to stay with it every week, but like if you have a commute, if you're working out, if you're doing whatever, you can just kind of play that and like three hours can kind of go by. But you have to, if you're trying to make something of quality in a long form show and you're doing a three hour episode, or even if it's like an hour and a half episode every week, that's difficult to upkeep.
Sam: it is really hard.
Rowan: Yeah. I could only imagine that you're, you're kind of experiencing that
Sam: Oh yeah.
Rowan: end. Yeah.
Sam: I mean, it's really like, live streaming is one thing, like running a good live stream is really hard and you have to be really on for it. Recording, you have to be less on for it, but then you probably are editing, right? And if you want to do a highly produced show, like My first Dungeon, like forget about it. It's so hard.
What about orbital blues? What's the deal with this game? Can I just say, this is the cowboy bebop game or do we need to do more than that?
Rowan: It's the sad space cowboys game. Yeah. Great. Yeah, I think that's really it. It is sad space cowboys music is kind of woven in its future capitalist, hyper capitalist nightmare place. that's the real conceit of the game.
Sam: Yeah. Published by Soul Muppet. The designers listed on the cover are Sam Sleney, Joshua Clark, and Zachary Cox. I hope I said Sam's last name right. Uh, Shout out to another Sam.
And we're gonna go to an ad break now and give people a chance to go listen to the opening moments from session one of my first Dungeons Orbital Blues series. We're gonna skip over the session zero episode and dive just right into the fiction. In future episodes in this actual play series at Dice Exploder here we may play like a clip here of the moment, but this one is like half an hour long, so I figured it'd be easier to just put a link in the show notes. If you want it, go check it out, and we'll see you soon.
alright, Rowan, why don't you start uh, walking us through beat by beat what happens here in the Orbital blues game?
Rowan: So session one of Orbital Blues starts in a very traditional, my first dungeon fashion where the gm, in this case Brian, is doing the opening introductory text of the game, kind of what you get in the little blurb of the RPG book itself in character. You get this like really beautiful, this beautiful riff by the sound designer BE/HOLD an incredible musician. Who
you're getting in these exact moments, the tone of the show, you are getting that. It's going to be a highly musically produced show. You're seeing how that theme from the game is gonna be woven in for the rest of it.
And then once that introductory text is over, you jump in immediately in media res. You are like, we are in, these characters are chasing, chasing after this guy named Richard Dick Whiskey, which also goes to show like what is the, the comedic sensibilities of this show going to be? And you hear out of the fiction, all of the other players laugh at the absurdity of the name Richard Dick Whiskey.
So you're getting in literally, I would say two or three minutes the sense of what this show is in its sound design, in its tone, in the way it balances fiction and nonfiction. And then they jump right into initiative.
So I think something that is really interesting there is while they're in combat, they're not just going into a fight. They are using this moment of action to go character by character to show how they are reacting to this moment. You are getting to see Shenuque character being the kind of like high strung captain that people didn't show up to the meeting for. You're getting to see Carolyn's character who's this like badass cowboy described as like a Norman Rockwell but if Norman Rockwell made cyberpunk. You get Drak's character and you see like the fact that they are mute and also wear a mask, and they converse only through typing on their phone.
You get these really beautiful descriptions of these characters, which as you had mentioned kind of before we started recording, that, that's something that really drags down the opening of a
Sam: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. So several things in here. First is, I think it was watching some Dimension 20 where I first saw someone use this, like, oh, we're gonna just take things one character at a time, like. pick your poison on like whatever show Brennan Lee Mulligan is G Ming. Like the way he kicks off a campaign is like, I'm gonna do a five minute one-on-one scene with each pc down the line so you get a moment to really meet that person. That performer gets to like flex their muscles a little bit in terms of like figuring out who that person is and showing them off to everyone.
And like, we're also like setting up the like the baseline before we get to the tilt, right, before we like shift everything, throw everything into chaos with whatever the beginning of the campaign is gonna be.
I think that's a super effective, tool not just for actual play, but like for playing role playing games at large, like as a dm, like going around the table and giving everyone the chance to show off a little bit and just like take the spotlight. Great way to open a campaign.
And like great use of combat to do that because like combat here is naturally taking turns and like being in the middle of a chase. I think like starting in media res like that is really fun.
I will say I think a lot of my problems with actual play at large are also on display immediately here, because as much as I think that, like you are right, that like this format is great of like spotlighting each individual character we really do kind of like get, you know, we start with this opening narration and then we're like right into a joke about like, huh, we're doing math. And then like, we do all this stuff. This opening scene, like of catching the guy and like getting through all the character introductions is like 35, 40 minutes long. And like in a TV show it'd be four.
And like, and like I just want things to move faster. Like I, I, really like, I find it really difficult. Like I think the thing in the thing you are doing with all that extra time in something like this, as opposed to cowboy bebop is getting to know that nonfiction layer of the show, right? It's getting to know not just like. Who is Shenuque's high strung Captain, but Shenuque's relationship to that high-strung captain and everyone else's relationship to Shenuque and Shenuque's relationship with Brian, who's DMing and like all of those non-fiction relationships. And so I don't know that this is like something that like this show does wrong or like the, like the people need to like, figure out how to fix or anything.
But I do feel like that, later in this series, we're doing an episode about the Last Train to Brooklyn, right. This actual play of Last Train to Bremen where they like went and played it on the New York City subway, right. And that I think that show's goal is so much more to capture that nonfiction layer.
And in the opening moments of this Orbital Blues game, like they're not ignoring that nonfiction layer, right? Like it's there, but like it really feels like what the sound design, especially. like, they are really like pushing the attention onto the fiction layer and that makes everything drag to me because they gotta bring the nonfiction layer along with it.
and I, I just see that tension as immediately interesting to me in this opening.
Rowan: Yeah, no, that's a really interesting point. I think that that makes a lot of sense.
And now I'm thinking to other shows or even like other My First Dungeon shows, that don't necessarily do that. I think maybe their Die season is a decent example of that where they're just kind of like they're in the moment of everyone arriving to, 'cause they've done all of the non-fiction stuff in the session zero
Sam: Yeah. Yeah. What? I'm sure they did a lot of that here too. I haven't actually listened to the session Zero of Orbital Blues, but
Rowan: No, absolutely. But that's something I necess I hadn't necessarily considered. And I think it's a really good point. And I'm wondering if that is a, a detriment or a benefit to the medium at large. And it's it Yeah.
'cause I, because it, it's certainly like, I don't think they've made a bad choice. here, right? Like, I think this choice like loses me a little bit, but that's just like my take. I don't Listen to a lot of actual play. That's part of the reason I'm doing this series is I want to know more about it. Right?
Sam: Like, but I think like for the people who like actual play, this is the thing that they like, like this kind of actual play like is, there's clearly an audience for this. Like my first dungeon is really successful. Like I don't think this is a poor choice.
But I do think that like, I'm gonna be much more on board with the kind of choices they are making here I think if they are intentionally highlighting more that nonfiction layer, right? Because then suddenly it doesn't feel slow to me to like get on board with all the fiction stuff because like, that's not the meat, that's not what I'm here for. Like, that's the dessert. Right?
And like that framing I think can. If I'm thinking about this as reality tv, then it feels like I'm right in it immediately. Like, this is great. But when it's presented to me as like Cowboy Bebop, as fiction,r it feels like, yeah, I'm in it right away. But like every moment has taken so long to to happen
Rowan: Yeah. So there's like a mismatch of expectation and execution for you when
you're coming
Sam: me. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah.
Rowan: That's really interesting and it makes a lot of sense. Yeah.
Sam: Yeah.
But I think like I also wanna just call out, like, so many of the character introductions here are really fun and I think really good. Like, I think that another common thing with audio specific podcasts is that it's hard to like tell all the voices apart and especially when you have a fairly large cast, and I'd say even like five people is like a large cast here, right? They do a great job on this show, of like, no one's doing like a huge big swing with a character voice, but they're doing just enough to, like make it really easy to tell the character voices apart.
Like someone's got an accent. I believe it's Elliot's character who just like speaks quite slowly is like a nice variation to it. Drak is mute. And so, you know, that, that's the other thing that it can be difficult is sometimes you have like a character voice and a player voice, and it's like, which player is making what voice, you know? But, and so like that helps collapse things down too when someone's mute.
That variation in who's talking I think is, they do a great job with just for in terms of like helping people keep track of who everyone is and what's going on.
Rowan: yeah, I am my, my brain is racking between all of the, because I have watched so much actual play in my lifetime as an actual play critic, and there's something fascinating about this because I would say this is definitely on the lower end of the nonfiction spectrum.
Sam: Mm-hmm.
Rowan: And I'm trying to find in my, my conception what is a faster fictional, like what show would do this in five minutes?
Sam: Yeah.
Rowan: I don't know if there is one, which is
so interesting.
Sam: I think that's partly a medium problem, like, 'cause I think this Sort of nonfiction layer is sort of inherent to the medium. That's what we kind of kicked off by talking about here, right? Like if you're taking that out, then you're getting into devised audio drama territory. Right?
And like, that's fine. That I think that does exist. And probably they're not getting to the meat fast enough. 'cause I think like movies aren't getting to the meat fast enough. You know, like, like, like uh, that's not like a medium specific problem either.
But I feel like the, the other way you could do it is just have fewer players at the table. I mean, like, this is a lot of people to introduce. Right. But if you do like that tight, snappy opening Monologue outta Brian, and then we've got two people, it's like a, you know, a buddy show, right? Like two people are chasing after Dick Whiskey, suddenly like there's so much less to introduce that like we can really get through it all quickly and immediately get to that like, okay, we've caught him, now let's do the thing.
And like then you lose out on having a bigger cast and like all the dynamics you're gonna get from that and everything. But that would be the way I can see to tighten things up in this format of show.
Rowan: yeah, because going back to another, a previous example like Voices in the wood is largely just Kendo
Sam: Yeah. Yeah. And, And it does actually, I, it feels like it gets in there really fucking quick. 'cause Yeah, it's just him. He talks for like 60 seconds. It's just the opening monologue introduces the show and the character and the performer, and then you're into it. Right. And like, so yeah. It's really, really quick. Yeah.
Rowan: you, have you listened to Dark Dice? Any, any of it?
Sam: The first time I heard about dark dice was 40 minutes ago on this episode.
Rowan: So Dark Dice is a show by Travis Van Groff is a show that entirely leans into the getting rid of the table talk. It barely even shows dice rolls. It is produced by the same people who make like white vaults and it's that studio. So they live in the audio drama world and they are entirely leaning on the fictional narrative of it to a degree that some people go, is this even actual play? Which is another interesting conversation to have.
But this is a show that does that, that's like we are pushing this narrative forward. It is entirely just people talking to each other and some narration. And I'd be interested to see if you would grok to that more. Yeah,
Sam: Yeah. Well, I have found, you know, I spent a bunch of years working in audio dramas as a, an editor. and mildly as a Producer, and I always had a really hard time listening to them. And I know I wasn't alone because none of them were ever any successful at all, you know?
And I think that that comes from the way most podcast audiences actually consume the shows that they're listening to. Because I think most people are listening, like while they're commuting or while they're doing chores, or maybe while they're playing video games, right. But very often while they're doing something else.
And I think for talk shows or even shows like this American Life, you know, sort of like journalism reporting or like personal essay kind of stuff, I think it's okay if your partner comes into the kitchen and is like, Hey, I got a question for you real quick. Can you take your headphones down? Like, you know, doing that kinda like interruption. like you, you just don't lose a lot when you're listening to two bros talk about a movie. Right.
But when, when like you're listening to a piece of fiction sometimes there's. really important context that like if you stop paying attention for 30 seconds, you're just like lost now.
And so much like audio dramas and like all the actual plays that are, are privileging fiction in my mind, like. Really have that same thing going on. Like, you know, you don't necessarily have to be paying attention to all of them, but like you do have to be paying attention to certain parts of them in order to follow what's going on.
You can't just like go to the bathroom in the movie theater, come back and then like look around the scene to like pick up context because like, in an audio drama Uh, I don't know what room we're in. Like I, I know these two people are talking, but like, I don't know what character the GM is doing now. You know, like i, It's so much easier I think to just lose track of things.
Rowan: no, that's really interesting. It makes a lot of sense.
Sam: Yeah. Yeah, I, yeah, so that's my, that's why I think audio dramas at large, AP inclusive, like never really kicked up even when a lot of money was being put into them a few years ago.
Rowan: and even then video, actual play at transfer, the same thing because you're not on a set, you're
Sam: yeah, yeah,
Rowan: are still just seeing people at the table and relying entirely on the vocal.
Sam: yeah. Theater of the Mind baby. Yeah. So we got through like most of the opening here of this orbital the Blues game. But we, we didn't get through this sort of like, okay, each character gets a little spotlight moment and then they like catch Dick Whiskey and they get to have this little scene with him and we get this sort of like inciting incident for like what the campaign is gonna be.
And they like incorporate Dick Whiskey like into their crew. And like in some ways like now the GM is getting to spot like his main NPC, like that's what it feels like. It feels like the period on that sentence.
Rowan: Yeah, I think so. And I think that then you do get this feeling of the opening is over and we are now moving into the heart of the story, which I think going back to this idea of long form versus limited series, when you're doing a limited series, even as you're taking it slower, you're spending 35, 40 minutes on these introductions. You still gotta keep it moving
Sam: Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Rowan: only have six episodes to get through the whole story you're trying to tell.
Sam: yeah, yeah you get what? Like two or three things happen an episode, right? And like then you get everyone reacting to them.
And like, something that I'm looking forward to in this series is not just sort of like analyzing actual play as a medium, but also being like, okay, it's not often that we actually get to like sit down as designers and as players trying to get better at playing and like listen to records of people playing outside of being in the moment ourselves and like all the responsibilities that comes with. And like what can we learn from sitting down and like trying to improve at the skill of playing these games by breaking down these moments?
And I think like we, we've talked about the technique of like spotlight every character like up top. I think that's a real good technique you can bring to your home game. But I think another like pacing thing we're seeing here that is true of actual play, but also just true of role playing games because role playing games also like have the nonfiction and the fiction layers going on at the same time is you could do two or three things in two hours, right? Like that's what you got. Like that's what you get.
And, and just being aware of that, like I think that allows you to as a gm don't plan further ahead than that. Right? Like, like why would you, you know, and, but also like, maybe you do wanna make sure to plan the first one because having the first one be like, pretty solid and seeing how the players react to it can really like, give you a lot of nice momentum going into what's coming next.
Rowan: Yeah, I think that's what the best GMs do. I think the best GMs make that labor of moving through time invisible. Of kind of being able to have their players, which is also, this is a big responsibility of the players to be able to check themselves and be able to go like, I need to make sure that I'm not belaboring this point, that I'm not kind of going down a path that is going to not be interesting if we only have six episodes.
Which is show like Worlds Beyond Number doesn't have, 'cause they can just kind of do whatever 'cause they're doing this forever ostensibly.
You get to see Brian in, in his element really getting to go. Okay guys, like we're doing this Chase. You're having a bit. I'm gonna let that bit land and then I'm gonna jump in now and now you caught Dick, and now we're gonna talk about this
Sam: and the magic of editing is you get to keep all the best parts of that stuff in and throw out anything that doesn't work. But the magic of being at the table is that, like, the parts that aren't the best feel good 'cause you're like in them, you know, you're, you're like making them yourself.
So I, I think uh, the editing lets you see like an idealized version of how that pacing control might work, and that being aspirational can be really useful as you're trying to get better at being a GM or a player.
Rowan: Yeah, and I think Brian's a really interesting example 'cause Brian in this moment is both GM and editor, which I think is true of a, a lot of shows at this level where you know it so intimately that you get to control it in the first pass and then the second pass.
Sam: Yeah. Yeah. The editing is like the safety net or the, like bumpers on the bowling lane right. It like allows you to like keep on track with what you were intending.
Rowan: Yeah. It's the 10 to 15 hour per hour bowling bumpers.
Sam: yeah, yeah. Uh, But yeah, I mean, then they kick off and they go into this great series.
Is there anything else you wanna kind of conclude on here, Rowan?
Rowan: Yeah, I think actual play is at one of many inflection points it's had over its existence over the last like two decades. I think we are at this moment where we are seeing a maturation of what Dr. Emily Friedman calls the ambitious middle which is people who have really high artistic ambitions but maybe don't have the finances or resources to support that, and yet still make the product anyway.
Rowan: We are seeing a maturation where people are collectivizing and realizing that they are stronger as units rather than individual shows.
And building a legitimate industry that is cohesive and maybe not centralized, but or at least is working in tandem in a way that existed maybe for a brief moment a little under a decade ago
Sam: Yeah.
Rowan: people have learned the lessons, they've been here for a couple of years, they're navigating and understanding what that might mean for them future, especially in a particularly tumultuous moment in history where this kind of art has such a value for so many people as an escape, as a place of hope, as an opportunity to find like-minded people.
I think actual play is a very interesting art form in the way that TV was in the fifties, or film was in the
Sam: Mm.
Rowan: That I'm really excited to see keep going.
Sam: Mm-hmm. Well, I'm excited to see this series keep going. Rowan, thanks so much for coming back on Dice Exploder.
Rowan: Thank you so much for having me back.
Sam: Thanks again to Rowan for being here. You can find Rowan on Blue Sky at Rowan Zeoli, and you should subscribe to Rascal News. Thanks to everyone in Sports Dice Exploder on Patreon. As always, you can find me on Blue Sky at Dice Exploder, or on the dice Exploder discord, and you can find my games@sstonewallitch.io.
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