Some people on Twitter are trying to draft WotC into doing a Penny Arcade TV style weekly web show. Search for #wotctv on Twitter to follow the drive.
If you haven't watched it, Penny Arcade TV (or PATV) is a weekly web show that takes a look behind the scenes of the Penny Arcade web comic offices. It's in its second season and is pretty compelling to watch.
I think the idea that's out there of a similar WotC style show has a lot of merit. However, I think a Paizo show would be even better and in keeping with the current batch of design diaries that are being posted to the Paizo blog.
I posted this suggestion on twitter under the #paizotv tag. So far no takers, but we'll see.
So, what do you guys think?
I would watch it, if only to get some insight on how to make my own monsters/classes/spells/etc and have them be somewhat balanced.
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I really enjoy the PATV. The documenteries have a humanizing quality. It helps associate people and perosnalities with an organization. Granted, it really helps that the founders of PA are very charasmatic and funny.
If Paizo put together a documentary/web-show it would be awesome to have some shows focus on the going-ons of the office/industry and other shows focus on inter-office gaming. This would be similar to the breakdown of the PATV with some shows focusing on the office and others focusing on the creative process behind the web cartoon.
In short.
+1
What I enjoy about Penny Arcade TV (I guess to be completely correct, the show is Penny Arcade: The Series) is that it is a sort of slice of life reality show (complete with superb editing and production values) centered around a creative company. It is completely enjoyable. I've watched the entire first season and can't wait until Friday rolls around for each new episode of the second season to "air."
In all honesty, I enjoy it more than some television shows.
As for the particulars, it looks like they farm out the filming and production to different film production crews, I guess you would call them. The first season was done by 2 Player Productions. The second season is being done by Vantage Point Productions.
So far, I think I like the look and feel of the second season better, but they are both good.
If Paizo put together a documentary/web-show it would be awesome to have some shows focus on the going-ons of the office/industry and other shows focus on inter-office gaming. This would be similar to the breakdown of the PATV with some shows focusing on the office and others focusing on the creative process behind the web cartoon.
Oooooo. One part could be the filming of PaizoCon!
My understanding of how Penny Arcade: The Series came about is that they hired a crew to film the con which they then produced as DVDs. The DVDs were big hits as both souvenirs for con goers but also were bought by fans that just couldn't attend. I guess they had a good experience, because the Penny Arcade guys hooked up with a crew to make a show about their office life. You can see some of these origins in the first season that uses the Penny Arcade Expo (PAX) as a springboard for the rest of the seasons shows.
If you haven't watched Penny Arcade: The Series, I'd encourage you to do so and then try to frame it with respects to a similar Paizo show. When I do that, all I come up with is a mind full of awesome.
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RPG Superstar 2008 Top 32, 2011 Top 16
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I'm guessing that Paizo having the time to manage or the budget to put together a documentary/reality show style program is a non-starter for something like this.
A more modest proposal that could be cool would be to webcast a campaign with Paizo employees playing and GMing. It would have to not be one that was playtesting upcoming product most likely, but it would be relatively simple to do, just posistion the webcam to show the game table, start recording and put on the web. (I fully expect that this would turn into something far more involved that what I proposed, since a) I don't know anything about putting something like this together so I'm guessing I missed important details, and b) if Paizo did do this, they'd want to make it at their standard high level of quality.)
Were there to be such a thing as PaizoTV, I would have to insist that everyone taking part wears masks that match their forum Avatars. How are we supposed to recognize anyone otherwise?!
Seriously, Mairkurion can't be anything other than leafy...it just wouldn't be right.
And if PaizoTV is to echo the forums in some disturbing fashion, it wouldn't be done properly unless Heathansson shows up for a split second in just about every scene to make a small quip.
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PaizoTV would be a soap opera, with me, Kae and Set as the bad boys of the show. And Mairkurion would be the laughable, blundering fool we would always be picking on! ;Pwe need different divisions... and what are we going to call the championship belts?
There's no competition between me and Mairkurion -- the poor guy has lost most of his leaves, if you get my meaning. Set or Kae would be tough, though; I'd rather not fight them. Perhaps we could set up some tag team matches between the "heels" and "faces"? As for belts, I think Wes has girdles and corsets that we could use...
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Were there to be such a thing as PaizoTV, I would have to insist that everyone taking part wears masks that match their forum Avatars. How are we supposed to recognize anyone otherwise?!
Seriously, Mairkurion can't be anything other than leafy...it just wouldn't be right.
And if PaizoTV is to echo the forums in some disturbing fashion, it wouldn't be done properly unless Heathansson shows up for a split second in just about every scene to make a small quip.
Mairkurion *IS* leafy... he's not a man, he's an old, demented treeman. As for me, my avatar looks just like me -- a tattooed Chelaxian dwarf with a red beard and hellfire dancing behind my eyes!
It's sad to have to keep explaining things to dwarves...but I'm beginning to regretfully come to agree with Jacobs on dwarves and think, you just can't explain anything complex to them. No wonder they needed Snow White to clean up after their train-wreck asses. Other than the dwarvenly enhanced/mentally challenged I am sure all can get the wondrous archetype that is The Greenman.
I think masks is a great idea, although some avvies could be successfully reproduce through good costuming and make-up.
PaizoTV would be awesome. It wouldn't be a single genre, though: we're too diverse and all-encompassing for that. Different episodes would lean toward different genre mixes.
I haven't seen PATV. I hope it is better than that podcast they had, playing 4e and schillin' for WotCi. I think I only listened to the first few episodes...thing made me want to jump off a cliff (after genociding dwarves).