"I Like to Watch"
…damn it Tillis, you think in this Year Of Our Lord 2025 you can subject-line a newsletter with a reference to cult-classic ‘70s film Being There and expect anyone to get the reference?
I have, of late, been experimenting with the notion of livestreamed roleplaying games.
Perhaps you’ve heard me rant and rave against the format. Why watch others play a game, I’ve cried, when you could be playing one yourself? And I still believe that, broadly, but two things have struck me as I’ve delved into the form—one very obvious, one less so:
You can’t always be playing one yourself. Sometimes you’re doing the dishes, or folding laundry, or stuck in 1-hour bridge traffic. Perhaps you still wish to be submerged in story and character even when inundated by these prosaic activities.
Actual Play videos, whether seen live or watched after the fact, can be informative. They can let you know about new roleplaying games you’ve never heard of, far beyond the boundaries of standard D&D—games that perhaps you’d like to try yourself one day. But better still, they can demonstrate new ways of playing. I had long thought that the existence of a class of “professional roleplayers” might be deleterious to the hobby, but now it strikes me that these can serve as models for people who want to get into roleplaying but don’t really know what that looks like.
At any rate, I have now GM’d two livestreamed campaigns—one rather short, one quite long—and they’re both online in their entirety if you happen to be doing dishes, folding laundry, etc. or curious about games beyond D&D and the way we played them.
The first, pictured above, is a playthrough of the new starter set for The One Ring Roleplaying Game. Over the three-session adventure, we experienced much of the joy, wonder, and melancholy of Middle Earth (and made friends with a very special pony). I got to run the game in the extremely cool studio of Quests and Chaos, who stream all kinds of games on Twitch. You can find the first episode (with links to 2 & 3) on youtube here.
The second, pictured below, is Midnight in the Garden of Chrome and Fog, a cyberpunk campaign I wrote and ran for the RPG Cities Without Number. This one’s 16 sessions, and while it starts off looking like it’s going to be heist-of-the-week, it quickly deepens as the characters find themselves drawn into a conspiracy decades in the making. You can find the whole youtube playlist here.
The internet kids have half convinced me that there is some kind of value to “like” and “subscribe.” If you believe in such things, you might click the appropriate buttons. I’m personally more interested in comments, especially of the “that’s the worst joke I’ve ever heard” and “holy shit, did you foreshadow that twist 14 sessions in advance??” variety. (If we’re not being facetious, I absolutely love answering questions about the craft of GMing)
And, of course, if you ever find yourself wishing to play either of these games, you know where to find me… 🙂