“We’re all nerds and geeks here, right? Let’s overanalyze.
This podcast is great when it’s a mix of game and metagame, in other words, when the hosts spend some time on the world of DnD, how the game works, and cool things to do inside the fiction, and spends another part of the time on behind the scenes, nerd culture, celebrity feedback. Recent episodes They used to present some hilarious recorded games, though that trend has died off. Go back and listen to those, they are great.
I feel for newer episodes that marketing pressure has gotten to the hosts, so now half the episodes are promoting the newest Wizards thing (and this is a Wizards production, so they have that right), and the other half is trying to present DnD as now totally mainstream, that everyone does it, and you should too. I think that’s good in a way; for example, there is a noticeable effort to include female voices which I believe is vital to the game. In my personal games, I try to make sure the group is roughly half male and half female, and the fact I find female players willing to play is a testament to how much Wizards and the rest of the tabletop culture has promoted this game as female friendly. So that’s good. Perhaps it’s overkill for the rest of the demographics they are targeting.
The last few podcasts have asked for reviewer advice. Here is mine. Try to achieve the above goals “in game”. Bring celebrities and other guests on the program and have them promote themselves, but make that short. Make some regular “gimmicks” for guests. Instead of asking how they started DnD: have them play DnD with a short 10-15 minute mini-encounter. I’m sure Chris Perkins is up to the challenge of making such a thing happen. Make a really hard monster to beat, and see if they can kill it. Have them design a monster themselves. Or a character backstory. Live games are great and much missed, and if you serialized one and played 15 minutes each week at the backend of your normal material, it would be a reason to keep coming back each week. In general, try to make each podcast feel like you are sitting around a table, playing a game, chatting about life, and we’re getting to listen in for an hour. That would be truly awesome.”
bryesk via Apple Podcasts ·
United States of America ·
12/10/15