What started out as a bunch of friends playing DnD has turned into a money grabbing business.
Half of the "first hour" is always a recap of what the people have done in the previous week, they talk about movies, video games, food, literally anything other than actually getting down and playing the game.
Many of even the long-time players have no clue what they're doing Incontrol often forgets his modifiers and has to ask the gm for example, despite being on only one show, being able to open his character sheet by himself and playing for years now.
Both the current GM's have seemingly used the show to promote and better their own personal situations, adam got a job with roll20 due to the amount of fans requesting it after he applied for the job. Steven is using the show to promote his extremely broken video game.
JP is quite obviously bored with it all, nobody really cares anymore on swansong and roleplaying has just ended, the show often devolves into Erik solo fanwank with adam playing pi. Combat doesn't ever happen despite Geoff playing combat heavy characters twice now, Prosper and Erik have been decent in fights and Higgs is able to lend a hand and so can Pi, yet the GM never really allows combat to happen. They claim they want combat to be lethal but almost every encounter never ends with the pcs even being close to death, Adam just doesn't want fights and since the roleplaying is shit there's nothing to watch for really.
Dark Heresy when it ran (like all 6 sessions across 8 months or so) wasn't well done, the GM wasn't very knowledgeable on the setting and TB had to keep correcting him, this obviously caused problems as it threw a spanner in his plans. This could've been solved if the GM knew their shit or if they had discussed this ever and just asked the players to go along with any mistakes.
>>43628101
Then stop listening to it.
> problem solved.
>>43628101
Neal got out fine though, he's playing D&D and still having fun, sure people have problems with how he DM's but it's obvious he cares more about playing than anybody else involved with Rollplay.
Really if you want to see friends playing D&D, having fun and some decent roleplaying as well as combat happening more than once a leap year you should just check out his channel.Of course I'm Neal and just shilling my channel on /tg/ btw
Back on the topic of swansong because I've got so much to say about it. Adam is quite obviously railroading the party at points, what could they have done to stop the warmind fucking up andoni? Nothing. He keeps bringing his AI into everything, oh you're checking out some research station? WARMIND is just there because obviously he would be. He keeps trying to get them involved with AI, early on they find a ship and an AI that is of course super important and everything, they literally tell everybody they've got an AI and no problems ever come from it because if they lose Pi they'd actually be free from the rope he has around their necks.
Oh and at least once per session Adam just roleplays with himself for a few minutes. Whether it be showing the party a "scene" that is happening far away that they'd have no possible way of viewing or talking to himself with his npcs (usually pi too, he's obsessed with this "childlike mind") and this is the only roleplaying that happens in the show, the only roleplaying is the GM talking to himself with his NPCs. Which if they're not an AI they're almost always a person of colour or somebody with an obvious non-straight sexual orientation. I understand it's a space game and thus this shouldn't be unusual, but he is always very obvious in describing the fact that they aren't white, straight and male that it's really annoying and sorta pandering.
>>43628339
No kidding, when the zombie research station started and was introduced with something like "Today we're gonna do something we haven't done in a looong time: Take on a mission the community voted for" I realized how much of the sandbox setting had been left behind because Adam kept them involved in chainquests and general AI stuff.
By now the crew have gotten involved with so much high-ranking bullshit I'm surprised they're still stuck with paying off their ship. It seems like a mission goal from an entirely different setting with entirely different stakes and narrative style.
>>43628339
I stopped watching Swan Song when Stephen's second character left the group for a lot of those reasons you pointed out. The high horse Adam spends the entire series on just really annoys me. It's so insulting that he needs to nod and wink at the camera every time he does anything like that. Also his insistence on using a directors terminology and also telling players what they're doing in the show. At one point he tells JP that we are seeing the "real Higgs" and I hated that it was Adam who decided this and not JP.
What's almost as bad is his edgy, lol-so-quirky not!Russian on West Marches.
>>43628583
I think Gregori's on the low side of wacky when you've got valley girl orcs and happy-go-lucky-devastation child sorcerers running about sucking some 8-titted demi-goddess' tits.
>>43628607
That's fair enough. I suppose West Marches is just that kind of game. I'm probably just projecting my dislike for Adam the DM onto Adam the player.
>>43628101
Stop supporting it.
>>43628709
I've never liked, subscribed or spoken about the show anywhere other than /tg/ right now.
Also I use adblock, I don't think I've supported it at all.
>>43628101
I miss the Dark Heresy campaign, and I never liked Rollplay that much.
>>43628763
That was the only one I liked, and I only watched it because of Total Biscuit
>>43628101
People don't watch twitch or streaming games to experiences games.
People watch twitch and streaming games so when they're home alone they can hear the sound of another human being and be comforted and convinced that maybe they're not so alone.
People watch twitch and live streaming games so they can participate in the chat and feel like maybe they're a part of some kind of social group or something- when everybody starts shouting out memes and emotes and you're part of the wave it feels good, etc..
Streaming has nothing to do with games.
People who watch streams usually don't play games because they'd rather watch streams.
I don't think this is a bad or good thing because fundamentally it distracts a lot of really sad and lonely people way better than TV was ever capable of doing simply on the basis that streamers occasionally interact with their viewers live and are essentially talking to them.
Imagine if the fire place was capable of telling you stories, asking how your day was and telling you jokes and giving you advice and so forth.
>>43628339
Are you really Neal? Gotta say you are a great DM. When I first started watching you on Rollplay Solum I kinda thought you were a dick. But you always managed to exceed my expectations by making the game fun.Are any of your recruits for your next game from /tg/?
>>43628942That was sarcasm man
>>43628848
TB and iNcontroL were fucking amazing, I laughed too damn hard that one time iNcontroL failed a point blank shot with his shotgun and he mimicked his guy missing.
>>43628957
Shit
Years ago I really wanted actual play sessions but they were few and far between. Just a few podcasts which had all the usual filler real games have.
I thought it would be interesting to see how other people play these games, but I can't listen to these. I'd rather just play the games myself.
And why is it always over Skype or whatever? That's a completely different experience to being sat around a table.
>>43628101
I like R&D when that shows, mostly because Jesse's pretty cool, and Steven is the best GM by far, in my opinion.
>>43628339
>Pandering
Has things changed since the concert bit? That was the last time I listened and it seemed up until then it was just funny accents.
The crew they had at that point was pretty cool although it was really Higgs carrying the show with his bits playing off Geoff's Straight man character.
>>43629006
>why is it always over Skype
Nobody in the group lives near each other, and it's a lot easier to get people together for a four hour session you're going to broadcast online when you're not limited to people living near you.
>>43628926
>dat projection
>>43628101
>thinking that anything this bad would ever be good
Sorry chum
these guys are scum
they only exist
to steal your shit
by doing shit
that any twit
or stupid jew
could also do
>>43628101
>Dark Heresy when it ran (like all 6 sessions across 8 months or so) wasn't well done, the GM wasn't very knowledgeable on the setting and TB had to keep correcting him, this obviously caused problems as it threw a spanner in his plans. This could've been solved if the GM knew their shit or if they had discussed this ever and just asked the players to go along with any mistakes.
As some who is heavy into RPG yet doesn't know anything about Warhammer, I found the DH set to be the hands down most enjoyable one. Likely because I don't have anything to compare the world to.
>>43630014
>dat defense reaction
>>43628126
This is a discussion board. He's starting a discussion. Don't be such an imgur-tier retard, spouting comments off in isolation.
>>43628101
>Three Comments. Three people.
First and foremost. I want DJwheat to just die... He isn't entertaining, which is boring in of itself. And he is CONSTANTLY dragging the fun out of scenes by trying to make himself look good instead of just rolling with the scene. Oh also lets talk about his kid more. yaaaay... He is one of the worst kind of That-Guy.
Gene/LivinPink needs to just stop being on the show as well. I swear, every time they mention how she doesn't speak English. Take a shot.
The other members constantly tell chat-people off by saying: "Leave her alone! How many languages do you speak"? That's fine. The Audience will sit there for another ten minutes while she fumbles around her second language trying to think of the right way to describe things in English. Never mind she's dragging out and killing any entertainment value.
We should just sit back and marvel at how she can speak several languages... mediocrity. Wow. Fantastic.
Neil. Neil over all ... is a alright DM, I think. I'd play under him at least. He is pretty quick witted and knows a lot of his stuff- Or knows enough to make up something on the spot. An admirable trait in a DM. He suffers from minor story-telling syndrome, and some moderate rail road issues, and definitely some other issues. Over all decent.
But just not as entertaining as many of the other the GMs, and that's the name of the game on a Youtube channel. Be entertaining.
Also watching him argue with Incontrol constantly? Yeah that's great you guys keep saying you're both still friends and it's all in good fun. Don't care. It's not fun to watch them fight for seven minutes.
>/rant
It's still entertaining for me, I don't miss a West Marches and the rest I binge watch as I wax in and out of moods.
>>43629232
Agree. R&D is the best format and the variety means more dramatic storylines.
Legend of the Icelanders was amazing.
>>43632886
I think a lot of this comes down to most of the crew being friends having fun with each other first and people making a show for an audience second.
For example, 30 minutes of talking about each others' days in the beginning is annoying as hell for anyone that's not a heavily invested fan already, but for the crew it's probably just part of what they want to get out of their occasional get-togethers since they live far apart.
Not that that makes things any better, but I doubt they'd ever make any changes because one of their friends is better or worse suited to roleplaying for a general audience. They found out they could make money with streaming their sessions and selling some merch and that seems to be where they want to keep things.
>>43634162
>Watching West Marches
How? I couldn't stand all the randoms and their "lel so wacky x3" characters and the group cohesion is all over the place.
Adam switches from "solid GM" to "annoying SJW faggot" on a dime. It's something special.
>>43636812
He started out so normal and good too.
>>43628101
that's what you get for following shitty webisode bullshit. why were you supporting an impotent medium in the first place? you look like a "doctor" trying to revive a corpse and now you're complaining that the rot is starting to smell like that's the big issue. Just leave the fucking impossible task alone Frankenstein. No one asked you to play god.
>>43632886
I'm going to join in on your rant. I can't stand Kaitlyn. At fucking all. She does little to contribute to Mirrorshades and is only around for "lol randumb" attributes that seems to bring around a certain type of crowd that likes her little quips. Most episodes she goes without doing anything and her vapid personality that she projects on to her characters is by far and away the most transparent of all the roleplayers. Seriously, I only sat around to watch the West Marches episode she was on because I read that she about died and I wanted to see that in action. I have no idea what her class is in Shadowrun because she doesn't play to it. Face? Rigger? I don't think she knows. She's just there to fill the 4th position and JP has some sort of hard on for her. I thought I was the only one that though she didn't do anything until they started to give out karma awards after every session, and she has gotten the least out of everyone. Hell it took her 11 weeks of handing out karma before she got one, even then it was because of a lucky roll. She doesn't roleplay, she makes chaos where ever she goes, frequently distracts from what's actually going on, and I feel like her character has the least dimension despite Adam giving her ample opportunities to actually do something. The fact that Adam, Steven, and even JP don't know if she's actually roleplaying characters or not says something about her.
If it wasn't for the rest of the Mirrorshades crew, and Adam's world building and ability to make shit up on the fly, I would have given up on Mirrorshades long ago.
>>43639162
I quite liked her in Ehbon. "muh horse"
>>43640060
I think I tried to watch Ebon once, and I bailed after I think the first or second episode/week of it. It was shortly after Kaitlyn told the cleric "Yeah it turns out your god was just a door-to-door salesman. It happened shortly after you were turned to stone." And the cleric guy just shrugs his shoulders and goes, "Sure ok, guess my god is a false one." Then continued on and that was it, suddenly the cleric was godless. I just sat there in disbelief at the utter lack of role-play. A cleric that derived their power from a deity, power from their utter unquestioning faith just had theirs tested and gave up without any sort of fight. It was the idea that Kaitlyn could make that sort of a statement and have that much influence on another character's personality/backstory that just put me off it and her completely.
