We play games because they’re fun but describing it in objective terms is impossible, except to marketers of course. They want you to know that the game they hock is not only the best damn game ever made, they can prove it. Every new AAA title is couched in terms that they think quantify fun for us: number of levels, weapons, perks, achievements, classes, unlockables, skins, game modes and most importantly the number of hours you are meant to play it. Every new feature adds more play time, supposedly making the game not only more fun, but a sound investment.

Fun becomes a verifiable fact. You gain the unlockables through skill and determination and then show them off to others both in and out of the game.  The game design assumes that your ultimate goal is proving to the world that you’re the best. Becoming one of the elite players takes dozens of hours of at a minimum. To a certain degree, you have to play many of these games for at least 10 hours just to learn how to effectively play. Every class has its own tactics and each level has its own unique quirks. By the time you’ve invested enough time to learn the game; you might as well keep playing. You’d have to start over with a brand new game if you decided you didn’t like it. There’s just one problem with this model. It never bothers to question whether the game is fun moment by moment. Would you play the same game if there were no unlockables or perks to level up?

Lead and Gold is far more playable, entertaining and fun than Call of Duty: Black Ops.  Most would describe it as a third person Western themed TF2 knockoff. Four classes, each with one weapon and one special ability. You don’t play it to unlock anything or to master arcane strategies that require complex combinations of specific weapons and powers. Its simplicity is liberating. You only focus on the moment of play. My mind is clear of distracting side goals as I run and leap in the game. You don’t need to kill 10 enemies with a certain weapon or achieve a special personal objective to level up a perk. When I press the jump key, I almost feel the weightlessness of my character for a split second. It’s not quite joy but it’s definitely fun. The depth of the game comes from mastering the basic skills of shooting, dodging and outmaneuvering your enemies. The top players win because they are better at the game, not because they have superior weapons or perks.

This isn’t to say complexity is always a detriment to better game play. But good game play is hard to define or implement. Unlockables are much easier to design than a game that is always fun moment to moment. Complexity shouldn’t be a substitute for a game worth playing on its own merits.

Jane Lamprecht

Age: 32

Skills: First year M.D. with extensive field experience.

Background: Jane was once a promising young doctor in her first year of residency, covering the ER in a city hospital. As society collapsed, Jane watched in personal horror as her family and life vanished almost instantly. She was cut off from her family and friends as government forces entered the hospital and began evacuating hospital personnel. Patients were left in their rooms, as the government could only take people with skills vital to the war effort. The vast majority of doctors and nurse complied, desperate to survive. Shocked by the callousness of the government and cowardice of the hospital staff, Jane refused to go and remained with the patients along with a few other staff members.

Eventually, Jane had to abandon the hospital when it ran out of supplies and the patients either recovered or died. Since then, she’s become a wandering healer, trading her skills for supplies and food. She remains idealistic and frequently helps those who can’t pay for her services. In fact, her idealism is her way of dealing with her stress and emotional pain. However, she will work for mercenary and military groups provided they do not mistreat refugees or commits atrocities. She is a capable surgeon when it comes to treating gun shots and shrapnel wounds and can either go into the field as a medic or teach medical skills to characters. She carries a pistol for self defense but will only use it as a last resort. She will never work for any group or character she considers evil and is willing to die for her beliefs.

Lately, she’s started having nightmares of her family dying horrifically in her arms. She may stop her aimless wandering and begin the search for her family in the next few months.

Appearance: A weathered woman of German descent, black hair with a few grey strands showing. She wears sensible clothing, with a webbed tactical vest stuffed with medical supplies and held together by judicious amounts of duct tape. She speaks bluntly to men with guns, never backing down with them but kindly to those in need.

Zack

Age: 18

Skills: Scavenging, streetwise, wilderness and urban survival, unarmed combat, knife fighting

Background: A street kid grown up, Zack’s learned how to take care of himself. He spends his time on the fringes of settlements, looking for a scam or opportunity to improve his lot in life.

Zack will make himself available to any tough or well equipped group he can find and offers his services as a soldier, scout, or laborer. He is quick to please new employers but will gradually slack off and become unreliable when not monitored by a more seasoned character. He is also prone to petty theft, although he will not risk stealing valuable equipment as he fears being caught.

His attitude is full of bravado and fearless. He isn’t easily intimidated and is quick to start a fist fight with anyone who doesn’t show him respect. On the other hand, Zack is still green when it comes to fire fights and may freeze in combat. An experienced military instructor will see potential in Zack given proper training. In fact, Zack would make an excellent soldier if a veteran takes him under his wing and shows him the ropes of soldering. Such a bond does not come lightly as Zack will not trust a character easily. He is unsure of himself, let alone anyone else. But if a character earns his trust and trains him, he will have a valuable ally for life.

Appearance: Zack changes his look every few months, as one settlement learns of his thieving ways and drives him off. By changing his appearance, gossip about him doesn’t spread far. Currently, he sports a ratty brown mo-hawk (self cut), wearing a death metal t-shirt with a torn blue jeans. He carries a scavenged hiker’s backpack and several concealed knives. He has a functional zip gun but only uses it in emergencies, as he only has a few bullets.

Cal Chilton

Age: 47

Skills: Diplomacy, Investigation, Politics and Fast Talking

Background: Cal was a cop before the war with a head for politics. He was average in police work but his silver tongue got him a steady stream of promotions and accolades. He became arrogant and boastful and took shortcuts with procedure. Eventually, a minor accounting scandal damaged his career. He was relocated to a calm district with little crime and a smaller chance of promotion. Still, he made the best of it that he could and soon became a major player in the region.

After the war, Cal saw his opportunity and made the police into his private army. He purged the ranks of the police of any potential troublemakers, exiling from the district and then recruited thugs and punks as a special ‘peacekeeping’ force. They commandeered as many food caches and gun stores as they could, which turned Cal into the de facto warlord of the region. Unfortunately for Cal, his powerplay made him unpopular and a militia formed to take him down. Brutal fighting between the militia and Cal’s thugs lasted for months. Both sides grew tired of the bloodshed and pressure from outsiders forced them to seek a compromise. Cal managed to negotiate a settlement that kept him in power, but only in a reduced capacity. Cal kept his most loyal men by his side and he favored certain associates when he redistributed the looted supplies, thus keeping him connected. However, he is extremely vulnerable as many in the area want him dead. He is eager to help anyone who can help him and can provide black market contacts or information to those he deems worthy. However, he is not above selling out someone if it means a profit.

Appearance: A tall but portly man with slicked back silvered hair and a broad smile. Cal wears a stylized police commissioner’s uniform, part of his self designated job as ‘keeper of the peace’. A convincing politico, Cal is quick with a joke or speech, whatever is needed at the moment.

• Our 4E D&D campaign, The New World, really boosted our popularity. We have 28 AP episodes posted so far (with quite a few more recorded) and some of the players have their own fan clubs. We’ve even created a series of PDF sourcebooks, freely downloadable on our site http://slangdesign.com/rppr/the-new-world-free-4e-dd-campaign-setting/ I financed them through the ransom model so I got to pay my hosting and equipment costs, which is nice. Listeners can not only listen to the campaign, they can follow the discussions in the comments and in the forums and read the PDFs to see how they can run their own New World campaign.
• I outline each episode before we record it and I try to make sure we keep it on topic. I’ve gotten a lot of feedback from listeners who say they listen to RPPR because we keep it on topic, unlike podcast X or Y.
• I encourage listeners to post comments on the site  and thankfully we get a lot of discussion on most episodes.
• I like to experiment with podcasting and try new things – we started doing sporadic readings of terrible fanfiction stories as short comedy skits. Listeners either really love or really hate them but they are short so it’s easy for the people who aren’t fans to skip them.
• The RPPR AP podcast (which is weekly) is a big success – some listeners really love it and now that all the APs are on a separate feed those who don’t care for it can ignore it. It’s a lot of extra work to set up, maintain and keep posting new episodes though. Also, I’m rather fortunate that the regular RPPR gaming crew is very verbose and witty – people like the side table chatter.
• A few months ago I ran a 2 part horror game (merged both parts into 1 AP, 6 hours long) based on the creepypasta Candle Cove. It went viral when it was first posted, even reaching Boingboing. The AP got a huge response from our listeners. One listener said he listened to the 6 hour game straight from midnight to 6 AM because he was so enthralled it. I eventually emailed the Candle Cove author, webcomic artist Kris Straub, and told him about the game. He posted it on ichorfalls,com the original home for the story, http://www.ichorfalls.com/2010/06/07/rppr-plays-candle-cove/ – we got new listeners as a result and he got new fans of Candle Cove.
• I take a very loose approach to editing – I basically never edit AP episodes for content. I only edit interviews to trim out dead space caused by interruptions in connection or whatever. I take a minimalist approach to editing episodes. I’ve never set a minimum or maximum show length. I don’t see why I should place artificial limitations on RPPR.
• I redesigned the RPPR site in January, with new original art for the banner and I tried to make links to the forums and the New World setting page highly visible (well and our paypal donation button of course)
• I’ve made some RPPR schwag – postcards that I hand out at cons and just recently buttons that I’ve mailed to some RPPR fans who asked for them.
• I post links to the RPPR forums in the show notes and encourage listeners to post there. A friend familiar with PbP games recently expanded our forums to accommodate PbP games.
• I try to stay positive in the show – complaining about stuff is fun but I prefer to talk about stuff that interests me rather than stuff that irritates or annoys me.
• In RPPR shout-outs, I try to mention stuff that ISN’T super-popular – I want to shine a light on stuff not everyone knows about it rather than state “yes, Iron-Man is a neat movie”
• I try to make our show notes informative so a person will understand what a given episode is about before he listens to it. I’ve seen a lot of podcasts that have extremely sparse show notes. A recent RPG podcast episode had this for show notes: “Topic: Player Narration, Comic Book Movies, Writing Inspirations” along with a list of what games or shows they talked about at given times in the show. I have no idea if I want to listen to that or not.

Read some of the comments from the survey below the fold.

·         The Jank Cast and The Podge Cast have been responsible for introducing me to a variety of new games. While I am primarily a board gamer, I really enjoy reading RPG systems (they are so much better now than when I played 1990-2002).

·         Dragon’s Landing got me started. Sons of Kryos was my favorite; how I miss it. I also listen to the WotC D&D podcasts.

·         Really like listening to RPPR actual play cast and found heaps of awesome DM tips from Happy Jacks.

·         The guys from Nerd Bound are awesome. They play a wide variety of games and are responsive to listeners.

·         RPPR and Nerdbound Rule!

·         rppr is a pretty cool guy and doesn’t afraid of anything.

·         There are not enough podcasts for non-D&D game systems. Those that do exist are sometimes over-the-top in theme. For example, Order 66 is great but the little interludes with voice acting /fanfic themes is not appealing to me. The same for Darker Days. I really enjoy serious discussion, not in-character talk. Fear the Boot is the best though. BAR NONE. We need to clone them.

·         Also, I don’t tend to listen to podcasts with a lot of profanity. Oddly Gutterskypes is often flagged explicit, but it’s great podcast that I listen to regularly. This is an example of why I listen for myself to judge whether the language is pointlessly offensive.

·         Brilliant Gameologists irritates the crap out of me.

·         Oh yeah and Co-host of RPPR, Tom Church, is an awesome human being.

·         I love Happy Jacks. It is awesome. I wish I had enough time to listen to all of these pocasts.

·         I listen to The Podge Cast and Fear the Boot most commonly. Other gaming podcasts come after I’ve listened to my Podge and Boot episodes. And where the hell are the Brilliant Gameologists?

·         Listening to just the RPPR and the actual plays are enough podcasts for me. I didn’t know that there were that many RPG podcasts. I listen to one other non-gaming podcast but if I subscribe to more podcasts, I feel like I would have too many to listen to and would fall way behind.

·         Actual play is the thing that keeps me coming back to podcasts. Discussion is interesting and important, but it’s not nearly as interesting in a vacuum. (The Walking Eye is currently my favorite, although Actual People Actual Play gives enough of an overview of their games to be acceptable.)

·         Fear the Boot is still the highest quality gaming podcast by far. AGC has the best news.

·         Get Joe back on the Podgecast now that he’s given up on his own shows, damn it. He was the best host they had.

·         I appreciate the PodgeCast’s commitment to posting a show every week. I wish Trapcast would post more regularly.

·         I did not know there were so many gaming podcast, but my one true love will be RPPR. <3

·         Return to Northmoor is the most professional podcast out there.

·         i also started listening to SharkBone Posdcast probably because it’s local to Vegas.

·         Critical Hits wasn’t on there or the chatty dm but they rule.

·         I looked for RPG podcasts a while ago but didn’t find any I wanted to listen to regularly. A friend mentioned Happy Jack’s, which has in it a lot of people I know because I do faire. I’ll probably go through this list of podcast to find something to listen to in addition to Happy Jack’s.

·         It’s hilarious that you have Brilliant Gameologists on this list.,,although I guess they’re still releasing quarterly. Also: The Podge Cast rules.

·         I also listen to saved copies of Sons of Kryos, Durham 3, Misfit Brew, The Round Table, The Rolemonkeys, and RPGMP3-Whartson Hall Gamers.

·         Sons of Kryos — if it returned, I’d have something to tick.

He posted a link to the game on his sites:

http://www.krisstraub.com/post/673757468/a-candle-cove-roleplaying-session

http://www.ichorfalls.com/2010/06/07/rppr-plays-candle-cove/

I have a Youtube account where I favorite any remotely interesting video I find.

My Vimeo account has a few videos boomarked that aren’t on Yotube.

The picture is unrelated to this post.