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Streaming & Actual Play General Discussion

Lantern Lodge Customer Service & Community Manager

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We've added a new set of subforums to paizo.com for discussion of streaming, actual play, podcasts, and other forms of broadcast media that involve Pathfinder, Starfinder, or other Paizo related subject matter.

Cheers!


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Thank you for this!!!


Pathfinder Adventure Path, Lost Omens, Rulebook, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

Yay!

Second Seekers (Jadnura)

Thanks Sara! We started our podcast in July (IntrepidHeroes.Net) as an actual play podcast of the Dawn of Flame Adventure Path. We post weekly game episodes as well as interviews with folks associated with the Starfinder RPG (developers, organizers, authors).

I would be happy to share lessons learned with folks who are interested in starting their own podcasts (equipment, software etc.)


John Godek III wrote:

Thanks Sara! We started our podcast in July (IntrepidHeroes.Net) as an actual play podcast of the Dawn of Flame Adventure Path. We post weekly game episodes as well as interviews with folks associated with the Starfinder RPG (developers, organizers, authors).

I would be happy to share lessons learned with folks who are interested in starting their own podcasts (equipment, software etc.)

I'm considering recording my own podcast. I have access to quality sound equipment and professional audio editing software, as well as interested actors. I've spent about a year and a half planning, and think I have a pretty strong concept.

Any advice would be appreciated.


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Could someone post a "dumbed down" version of how the OGL works? I know I could read it or pay a lawyer to read it, but it would be helpful for amateurs to have something in layman's terms.

1. A group of friends records their homebrew session and posts it to Youtube (free).

2. A group of friends records themselves playing through a Paizo-copyrighted adventure and posts it for free.

3. A group of friends records themselves playing through a Paizo-copyrighted adventure and posts it to Youtube (paid) or some other platform where they could get some money, but the money is less than some threshold.

4. As 3, but above some threshold.

5. A group of non-friends organizes to do one of the above.

Paizo Employee Franchise Manager

If you're not publishing your own gaming material, you don't need to worry about the OGL. That's a license allowing you to use Wizards of the Coast's IP (and other OGL content) in gaming publications.

For use of Paizo trademarks and intellectual property, you should check out the Community Use Policy, which allows for such in certain circumstances.

Second Seekers (Jadnura)

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Artofregicide wrote:
John Godek III wrote:

Thanks Sara! We started our podcast in July (IntrepidHeroes.Net) as an actual play podcast of the Dawn of Flame Adventure Path. We post weekly game episodes as well as interviews with folks associated with the Starfinder RPG (developers, organizers, authors).

I would be happy to share lessons learned with folks who are interested in starting their own podcasts (equipment, software etc.)

I'm considering recording my own podcast. I have access to quality sound equipment and professional audio editing software, as well as interested actors. I've spent about a year and a half planning, and think I have a pretty strong concept.

Any advice would be appreciated.

Here is some basic advice:

1. Nail down what you want to accomplish and stick with it rather than try to do everything well. Our podcast is our regular group of players who had just finished Dead Suns and were looking to move to a new AP. None of us were voice actors, but one of our group is a Paizo developer who also does freelance work for them, so we decided that our focus would be on educating about game play and rules as we go along.

2. If you can swing it, have different people GM and do the audio production. I do both for our crew, and it can be time consuming. Luckily I have a pretty flexible work schedule (I am a university professor) so I can work out time to both prep for running as well as do the editing and post production afterward. Figure 1.5 to 2x the length of an episode for post production work.

3. Have a group that is not only committed to playing, but also committed to doing the podcast. We had been meeting regularly for a year and a half and everyone always looked forward to playing so that part was not an issue. People were interested in doing a podcast as well, but I helped stoke this interest by having everyone draft up detailed character back stories and descriptions and then commissioning custom artwork for each of their characters. In addition to sending the art to the players, I also printed out copies and put them on stands that sit in front of the player when we game. This really seemed to help get people into their character roles. In addition, we assigned everyone an in game administrative role to help keep things moving: We have a quartermaster to keep track of loot, a weapons master to research what the loot does in game, a lore master to keep tabs on in game story information, a scribe to keep track of what has been going on, and a rules lawyer to look up and clarify rules and application of them for both us and the listening audience.

4. Have weekly episodes. I know other folks may run every other week, but I think if you have good content people want to consume it fairly regularly. If you go too long between episodes, folks may move to another podcast in the meantime and just stay there.

5. As a corollary to point 4 above, try to keep your episodes between 45 and 75 minutes (so roughly an hour). Gaming sessions notoriously go much longer, but a lot of times your audience doesn't have time for a 3+ hour podcast all at once, so its good to offer regular break points via multiple episodes for each longer gaming session. This means as a GM you have to keep track of time and wrap things up when needed, even if you are going to start things up again after a short break.

6. Have a separate microphone and channel for each player as well as a separate one for you as GM. If you do sound work this is pretty obvious, but for other folks just starting out its easy to try to save money and just put a mic or two on the table and then record it all to one channel. By doing things separate you have a lot more options in post production for equalizing sound levels and removing things.

7. Start with good sound from the very beginning. This probably means testing out your room and equipment beforehand to make sure it is going to work well. I recorded a couple of the last Dead Suns sessions we did in order to work some bugs out as well as test out microphones. You want your first episodes to be good sound quality right off the bat so as not to turn off new listeners who are trying you out for the first time.

8. This last one is obvious, but make sure the GM is prepared each run, with well done maps and appropriate minis/pawns at the ready. You need this to make sure the game play flow is continuous with little down time for figuring things out and setting things up. Breaking things up into shorter episodes helps with setting up offline. Also, I GM'd the Dead Suns AP as well a lot of Starfinder Society scenarios so had a pretty good handle on how to prep and keep things moving. If your GM is an actor who does not have a lot of Starfinder experience then this could slow things down if they are not properly prepared.

Anyway that's my additional advice beyond just the podcasting basics. I don't have a lot of background in podcasting to be honest, but I have quite a bit in video, photography, and online content creation and curation, which I have leveraged as I have taken on this endeavor. Add that plus a PhD specializing in interactive marketing and voila - I made a podcast! I am happy to field any other questions folks might have.


John Godek III wrote:
Artofregicide wrote:
John Godek III wrote:

Thanks Sara! We started our podcast in July (IntrepidHeroes.Net) as an actual play podcast of the Dawn of Flame Adventure Path. We post weekly game episodes as well as interviews with folks associated with the Starfinder RPG (developers, organizers, authors).

I would be happy to share lessons learned with folks who are interested in starting their own podcasts (equipment, software etc.)

I'm considering recording my own podcast. I have access to quality sound equipment and professional audio editing software, as well as interested actors. I've spent about a year and a half planning, and think I have a pretty strong concept.

Any advice would be appreciated.

Here is some basic advice...

I know your advice wasn't meant to be targeted, but here we are anyway.

1. I have a strong concept in mind, and a very clear goal to accomplish. I'd rather produce nothing at all than anything short of a quality product. That said, I'm not interested in monetizing the podcast.

2. That is a very good point. The current plan is for myself and one of the players to share the burden. Neither of us are experts, but I'm doing my research.

3. Finding interested players and finding committed players are two very different things, I've found. That said, I've recruited a reliable core group. It helps that my intended release schedule is a little different than most podcasts.

4. My intention is to record and edit the first (and possibly only) "season" and release it all at once. I'm not against any sort of deadline, but I do expect to set a weekly schedule for recording and editing to keep things on course.

Is this a bad idea?

5. It's my intention to keep episodes as close to the 1 hour format as possible. I've mapped out the anatomy of an episode and plan to keep a timer.

6. Luckily we have mics for each player, GM, as well as other sound equipment and professional audio editing software. A good recording location is less clear to me. Any suggestions?

7. I plan to get the sound right before even thinking about recording the first session. I specifically plan to run several test sessions before actually recording the podcast.

8. Due to the nature of the podcast, I will need both the GM and players to be intimately familiar with the rules and their sheets. But I do expect the prep time to be very significant.

Like I've said elsewhere, I have no interest in reinventing the wheel. The GCP already exists, the Adventure Zone already exists, the Magpies already exists, along with scores of quality podcasts. If my concept turns out to be awful, I just won't publish it.

Second Seekers (Jadnura)

Artofregicide wrote:


4. My intention is to record and edit the first (and possibly only) "season" and release it all at once. I'm not against any sort of deadline, but I do expect to set a weekly schedule for recording and editing to keep things on course.

Is this a bad idea?

...

6. Luckily we have mics for each player, GM, as well as other sound equipment and professional audio editing software. A good recording location is less clear to me. Any suggestions?

If you are not worried about monetizing (and thus possibly concerned about how timely the podcast release schedule is) then doing it all at once ala Netflix series is probably fine and even a great idea. Nothing worse than getting really hooked by episode one only to have to wait a week for the next one!

Recording location issues include enough room for all the usual gaming stuff plus the mics,stands(if used), cables(if used) and recorder plus having decent sounding acoustics. A lot of meeting and conference rooms have walls and ceiling where the sounds just bounces around and sounds unnatural. A shared space might have background noise from other people/groups that is hard to remove because it is constantly changing. In someone's house works well for us because there is enough stuff on the walls to diffuse the sound, and its not hard to remove background noises like fans and refrigerators that make the same sound constantly.

I use cardiod microphones that tend to mostly get sound from the subject they are pointed at and less so the surrounding environment.

Anyway sounds to me like you have your ducks in a row and should be ready to go.


John Godek III wrote:
Artofregicide wrote:


4. My intention is to record and edit the first (and possibly only) "season" and release it all at once. I'm not against any sort of deadline, but I do expect to set a weekly schedule for recording and editing to keep things on course.

Is this a bad idea?

...

6. Luckily we have mics for each player, GM, as well as other sound equipment and professional audio editing software. A good recording location is less clear to me. Any suggestions?

If you are not worried about monetizing (and thus possibly concerned about how timely the podcast release schedule is) then doing it all at once ala Netflix series is probably fine and even a great idea. Nothing worse than getting really hooked by episode one only to have to wait a week for the next one!

Recording location issues include enough room for all the usual gaming stuff plus the mics,stands(if used), cables(if used) and recorder plus having decent sounding acoustics. A lot of meeting and conference rooms have walls and ceiling where the sounds just bounces around and sounds unnatural. A shared space might have background noise from other people/groups that is hard to remove because it is constantly changing. In someone's house works well for us because there is enough stuff on the walls to diffuse the sound, and its not hard to remove background noises like fans and refrigerators that make the same sound constantly.

I use cardiod microphones that tend to mostly get sound from the subject they are pointed at and less so the surrounding environment.

Anyway sounds to me like you have your ducks in a row and should be ready to go.

That's encouraging to hear. I always assumed that the weekly release schedule for podcasts was intended to keep fans interested and engaged. But I pretty much only binge podcasts.

I'm hoping that a home setting will be good enough, as that's more or less what I have available. I'll have to do some testing to know for sure.

If it's not obvious, I'm a hopeless perfectionist, so at some point I'll need to stop planning and just do it.

Anyway, thanks for all your advice, so I'll be checking out your podcast.


Sara Marie wrote:

We've added a new set of subforums to paizo.com for discussion of streaming, actual play, podcasts, and other forms of broadcast media that involve Pathfinder, Starfinder, or other Paizo related subject matter.

Cheers!

I was slow to notice this, but thanks Sara! I hope this gets lots of traffic. :)

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