Episode 4: The Play’s the Thing

Here’s this month’s episode of StoryBoard, for those of you who haven’t caught it yet. Episode 4: The Play’s the Thing.

This month we broke with tradition in several ways. We pre-recorded the show in order to avoid election night bandwidth issues, and we invited four guests instead of the regular three.

Both experiments were a qualified success. Shooting the show earlier in the day allowed us to bring in parents and east-coasters Peter V. Brett, Myke ColeSaladin Ahmed, and Naomi Novick. We also managed to avoid running into election coverage by scheduling a week before the election.

The downside is that there was a *tiny* little hurricane going on during our hangout. I don’t think that helped our connectivity very much. We lost a few of our guests for a couple minutes here and there, but since all the authors involved were experienced speakers and tabletop RPGers, none of them were thrown too far off their game.

Did I mention that this month our focus was storytelling in roleplaying?

Here it is….

Share and Enjoy…

This entry was posted in gaming, Geek and Sundry, geeking out, the craft of writing, The Story Board, video games, videosBy Pat14 Responses

14 Comments

  1. Albender
    Posted November 8, 2012 at 2:31 AM | Permalink

    Nice. Keep them coming Pat. May I suggest “humor on fantasy” for a future session?

    Albert

    • Posted November 8, 2012 at 3:05 AM | Permalink

      Yup. That one’s on the way….

  2. Posted November 8, 2012 at 3:25 AM | Permalink

    I have been reading this blog for a long time, originally looking for news about the books, and then coming to enjoy the wry humor and topics you discuss. It is a rare treat to get insight into an author and the way you share here is pretty amazing. So thank you. I have meant to post here and just give a general thank you for a long time, but this topic is near and dear to my heart as I have lost many hours in role playing games, be them DnD, Deadland, or the or choose your own adventure books of my youth. I feel like game books are going away and that makes me sad but it’s nice to see people still talking about them, and in a manner that is informed and thoughtful. I recently so distress about the loss of gamebooks I backed one on Kickstarter(href=”http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/314653974/maelorum-an-epic-“>Maelorum if anyone is interested) just to try and keep them alive.

    Anyways thanks again and keep up the good work

    • Jezdynamite
      Posted November 9, 2012 at 3:42 PM | Permalink

      Great idea. I just donated to kickstarter too to try to get Maelorum off the ground. Fingers crossed. Thanks for the heads up!

  3. Linegod.Ens
    Posted November 8, 2012 at 3:47 AM | Permalink

    First let me say this. I am a Role playing gamer who is now a computer admin.

    I love D&D as a DM because it allowed me to express all the WHAT IF I come across in fantasy media. This is coming from a complete consumer of fantasy I never intend to write a novel but if I can I will have it all of it. Still in the end I’m left with so many ideas that have no basis in the real world. That if I am to express them I must create my own world. And so D&D is my expressive outlet.
    hmm What if?

  4. the_jb
    Posted November 8, 2012 at 9:49 AM | Permalink

    Your segment about story telling with kids hit home for me. Free-form collaborative storytelling with a 2-4yr old can be fun, and a challenge. And it has been a particular joy to watch my daughter’s creativity grow. I’m proud of this particular find: Rory’s story cubes (not to shill a product, but here: http://www.storycubes.com/). It offers a fun way for my daughter to create her own stories while providing a simple framework that forces her to work within constraints of the dice. The one panel I think is a fire, but it looks like a dragon to me, so there is always a 1/6 chance for a dragon story :)

  5. angel
    Posted November 8, 2012 at 10:02 AM | Permalink

    I did a college paper on: “Ancient History and It’s Role in Modern Fantasy Fiction”.

    Would love for a roundtable discussion on that topic :)

    • Beej
      Posted November 11, 2012 at 6:09 PM | Permalink

      A good panel member would be David Drake. His Lord of the Isles series is based on an ancient civilization (I can’t remember which and don’t have the books handy). He also based some of the Hammer’s Slammers novels on battles & civilizations he studied as a history major.

  6. IvoryDoom
    Posted November 8, 2012 at 2:31 PM | Permalink

    oh, and here I thought I missed the live version. Good to know.

    I loved the episode, excellent topic.
    Right from the beginning of reading your books I always thought you must play RPG’s and have admired the way you fit a great story into a balanced world.

    I’ve also wondered, what kind of things do you throw in to give an adventure more flavor? I always try to give rewards to characters who think outside the box…but sometimes it’s hard to deviate from the oh so cliche dungeon crawl…

  7. leaf101
    Posted November 8, 2012 at 2:43 PM | Permalink

    Put them in a situation that allows them to interact with something more than the average dungeon inhabitant. Or copy off a really good book’s plot…

  8. Liam
    Posted November 8, 2012 at 4:43 PM | Permalink

    I loved your bit about D&D nerds being out there in the world. For me I felt like an island of nerdiness in law school for a long time. Once I got confident enough to just start talking about it I found out that my school was FULL of old D&D nerds. Now a bunch of us are running through a campaign together and I couldn’t be happier.

    Nerds…we’re everywhere.

  9. CBot225
    Posted November 8, 2012 at 8:33 PM | Permalink

    Hey Pat,

    Probably the best Storyboard yet… really enjoyed it. Please have Naomi back on… she was great!

  10. hardingg10
    Posted November 10, 2012 at 3:21 PM | Permalink

    So, you know those google+ commercials that make you cry every time you watch them?… like, they’re so intense there’s a whole story behind them (the mom died, the daughter went to college, the dad is depressed etc.) Well, they should really look into using something from this. Such a better use of social media.

  11. Posted November 15, 2012 at 11:26 AM | Permalink

    Pat – great post. I love the story boards. First off your beard is legendary.
    I am currently a grad student at the Monterey Institute of International Studies and I have been a fantasy lover my whole life. I wish I would have started with D&D earlier, but I’ve just started really gaining experience in the field (so I’m slowly leveling up).
    Great cast, and great point about who the geeks of society really are, professionally, though. I did 9 years in the US Navy and was reading fantasy and playing D&D the whole time. There’s something to be said about how strong geek culture is in the U.S., and who these people (we) are. We’re out there and we’re in every corner. I love that Peter talked about how the notion of geeks being believed to be Satanists and that he was worried about not being able to get a girlfriend.
    My cousin’s family would not let him buy Magic cards or go to comic shops growing up because they were “demonic items”. I couldn’t believe it.
    Anyway, you’re the man. Thanks to the guests, and thanks for the cast.

    LP

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