Age of Ravens: All the Games: Actual Play Overview

Tuesday, December 9, 2014

All the Games: Actual Play Overview

I’ve made an effort to track my gaming in 2014. That includes noting games I played and those I bought. It also means I’ve expanded my library of Actual Play videos. I started recording these as a goof. RPG Sessions are transitory so the idea of being able to capture them appealed. But I’ve never gone back to watch these for nostalgia’s sake. Instead I’ve reviewed several of them to assess my approach, see what I missed, check my rulings, and find out where we left off exactly. We talked a little about taping your sessions in a recent This Imaginary Life episode. Watching your own sessions, painful as it can be, is a great way to reflect on your practice.

I hope some of the videos might be useful for other GMs. I’ve checked out Actual Play videos when I wasn’t sure how a game operated. Maybe aspiring gamemasters will gain a better sense of how a non-standard game plays (Kingdom or Durance for example). I watch other GMs' sessions for the simple fact I want to see how they run. To me, these GM videos show where the rubber hits the road. This is how I run. I write a ton about rpg ideas and practices, but that doesn’t matter as much as what I actually do at the table. That can get obscured when I'm working on blog posts.

My recent “What I Want from Combat as a Player/GM” posts have gotten some great feedback. In particular Douglas Cole at Gaming Ballistic works some ideas through his own experience and preferences. In my six years I’ve had a few posts which spread further. I’ve learned to expect some oddness when that happens. I often get a small number of comments suggesting I’ve been unclear or someone’s misread, particularly on other forums. So this, these videos, they show what I actually do…

DARK COLORS ONLY: A SIMPLE VIDEO PRESENTATION STRATEGY

Below I’m listing all of my Actual Play Videos for different games, in reverse chronological order. In some cases I have a playlist. I’ve put and example up and a link to the larger grouping. In recent months I’ve recorded many of these sessions using XSplit. That allows me to capture the Roll20 app so you can see the map and dice rolls. Since I record these locally, I break these apart to reduce upload time.

DURANCE: DAYS OF FUTURE PASSED