RPG Storytime is at Last Coming Out

I started my series RPG Storytime on Youtube with the intention on doing one season of four different shows every year.  Each show would have six episodes per season.  Star Trek would be in the spring, D&D would be in the summer, Outbreak Undead would be in the fall, and Star Wars would be in the winter.

Somewhere deep down in me I knew this was unrealistic, but I hoped I would rein myself in enough to make such a schedule possible.

I didn't.  So it's taking longer to make the videos.  But something bigger has interrupted the schedule.

At a certain point I found myself writing one series while planning a game for another series while playing yet another and recording stuff for the other.  Added to that was another future series I'm planning on doing, and some other games I simply like to play.  It was getting confusing!

I also discovered that the Star Wars game, which I admittedly overdid a bit, has grown into many storylines, all of which need to be clear to the audience.  In fact, they all have multiple storylines, but the Star Wars one is the most complex.  I started realizing that if I told that in 6 episode chunks, no one would understand it.  I didn't even know what 6 episodes to play with one another.  Added to this was the fact that I wanted to get Outbreak Undead out of the way to make room for Deadlands.

So the decision was made to run entire series together, rather than 6 episode chunks over several seasons.  Outbreak Undead is first.  Its first episode back is today and will run until Halloween.  There will be a break while I finish the rest of those episodes, which will come out in December.  I'll have a couple other games, then I'll be running my Star Trek series until it reaches the end.

The one exception I'll have to this is Dungeons & Dragons.  I want to have some episodes come out when Game of Thrones plays, so I'll have a few episodes of it in the spring.  Then, once I've put out some other game videos I've meant to edit for a really long time, I'll begin releasing the huge epic of Star Wars, which will run until the end of the year, coinciding with episode 9 in theaters.

I'm planning on doing a separate channel that is only RPG Storytime which will play all the videos in order without interruption.  I'm not sure when I'll do that, but I won't start shows on that until the last ones are finished.

If you'd like to see Outbreak Undead from the beginning, you can see it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UpaiVtbtoQQ&list=PLJ55yyr7uUQCa9GdXrvG7dhrEsh30kDV_

RPG Into a Book

I’ve been thinking about the role playing video idea and I know what I want to do with it.  First, I want to do my own version.  It won’t likely have as good of production value as Wil Wheaton’s, but I plan on doing something he didn’t; use miniatures.  This will bring over what I’ve already collected for my mini-wargaming show, and will hopefully bring over that audience.  It will also give a separate voice from other rpg videos already out there.  It should also look really cool.

But what will also make this endeavor work is the idea that I could make a book based on the story at the end.  The videos can generate an audience which is then drawn to the book at the end, because it’s the story they just watched unfold.  What’s more, I have had this idea for a fantasy world for a long time, but I didn’t have a specific story put together.  This will fill in that all-important part while giving me the chance to fulfill this desire to build my fantasy world.

I’ve also determined that sci fi and fantasy are a lot more likely to sell in self-publishing, and have determined to focus on that from now on, so this fits with my overall plan more anyway.

A New Form of Storytelling Through Roleplaying Videos

When I first learned about the concept of a roleplaying game in the 1970s, I was confused.  How could you have a game with no board, no cards, no pieces even?  I was blown away when I learned how Dungeons and Dragons worked, and how it was a story being made up by several people sitting in a room together.

There are many people who have forgotten this concept, and turn role playing games into mathematical equations, (also referred to as roll playing.)  But the people who truly understand the concept know that it’s about creating characters and a story and everyone making it together.

I always knew the strength of using this to create stories and even books, or even as inspiration to make a movie.  What hadn’t occurred to me until recently is how the medium itself can be used to create a storytelling video; one where you do not use the story as a script, but rather you show the people creating the story to begin with.

This has been achieved with Wil Wheaton’s Titan’s Grave where he and four players create a story by playing a role playing game and taping it with a professional crew.  What’s groundbreaking about this is the fact that it’s not used as the structure for the story, but rather is the story.  The concept of a storyteller has of course been around for eons, and has been popularized the last few decades on A Prairie Home Companion.  This takes that concept and increases it by five in the way it has five storytellers all doing it together, and you get to see the story form in front of you.  It’s made all the more exciting by the fact that the end is not predetermined.  Characters can die, and the party can even lose in the end.  It’s a mixture of a story and a sporting event all in one.  And the fact that it’s low budget means they’re less likely to pander.

I’m looking to do my own role playing videos as soon as I can; thus mixing the three things I enjoy most, storytelling, gaming, and videos.  I have several I want to do, including D&D, Outbreak, Savage Worlds, Star Wars, and Deadlands, which has already been started, but without cameras.