Wednesday, July 20, 2016

Gamer Requests Other Sensible Solutions

There are things I would like to see come into being in this life, but have no idea how to do it myself. So, if necessity is truly the mother of invention, what a mother she is....

Um, here are three inventions I want or have need for, but no means to produce:

1) Scrapple Parmigiana. I love scrapple. I love chicken & meatball parmigiana dishes and sandwiches. Scrapple seems like the next meat that should get the parm treatment.

2) Creamy Iced Tea. They make hot coffee, hot tea, and iced coffee with cream and sugar. Why does iced tea get no cream and sugar love? I make it myself this way and it is magical.

3) Family friendly web series of tabletop role-playing games. Critical Role is the king of web series featuring role-playing games being played amongst friends. The 'Advanced Dungeons and Dragons' episode of "Community" (the TV series) was the best episode of its six season run. Acquisitions, Inc. and Harmonquest are also web series that feature tabletop RPGs (TRPGs). None of them are family friendly.

The first two are easy enough, so for the purposes of this blog, I will tackle the last.

If we want the OSR to grow... If we want to gain new players, some of whom do not have TRPG-playing parents... If we want to use the best technologies available to spread the word of how much fun and enthrallings TRPGS can be...

Then why do we have no family-friendly web series of TRPGs?

Critical Role is brilliant, funny, and exhibits much of what makes TRPGs fun. The same can be said of the Acquisitions, Inc. and Harmonquest series. What cannot be said is, "I would be willing to let my child between the ages of 4 and 12 watch this series."

I am a Dungeon Master/Castle Keeper/Game Master/RPG Referee. I have some acting and voice skills I would love to put to use (I have been slowly working on reels for eventual upload to Behind the Voice Actors.com in the hopes of landing some roles). I have no way of making this happen anytime soon, but I do believe kids that have access to YouTube, Twitter, Periscope, and the like could watch a D&D-based or Star Wars RPG-based show that would be to TRPG Web Series as Kix are to cereals: "Kid Tested, Mother Approved."

That's all I am asking. Sites like those of The EscapistGeek Dad, and Geek Mom tell me I am probably not alone in finding such a show needed, enjoyable, and acceptable.

4 comments:

  1. I agree there is a need. I am a video/.film producer and would love to find funding for such a project. This might be something that could be crowd sourced through Patreon perhaps?

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    1. Good question, Frank. I don't see why not, but I am just "a voice crying in the wilderness." I have no idea if such a crowdfunding would be feasible. I would like to think there would be enough support for it!

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  2. Michael: I assume that by a "family-friendly web series [about] TRPGs" that you mean a YouTube channel about old school games that's good for introducing children to the game? Or, do you mean something else?

    Allan.

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    1. That is one such medium that can do what I mean. In the case of Acquisitions Inc., that first appeared (to my knowledge) as a series of YouTube videos recorded at various PAX conventions.

      Critical Role is broadcast via Geek & Sundry, live on Thursday nights, and then ported over to YouTube later. When we have watched that (it starts at 7 PDT, so that's 10 EDT), it's via the Twitch channel on our Roku.

      Either way works, so long as the videos are available for viewing later, for kids to catch up on shows they may have missed. I hope that I answered clearly for you. :)

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