Thread: Promotional videos

After seeing the two episodes of Tabletop, where Dragon Age pen and paper RPG creator Chris Pramas ran a game for Wil Wheaton and friends, I immediately thought it would've been so much cooler had it been one of The Design Mechanism people running a game of RuneQuest. The videos can be watched on Youtube: Part One and Part Two.

Tabletop might not be willing to do an episode on another RPG, since because of the confines of the format the result would look pretty similar despite the differences in the game system, the adventure and the GM. I think, however, that a video like this, if done well, would be excellent promotion for a less known roleplaying game such as RuneQuest.

Now I understand that The Desing Mechanism being essentially a two man shop with a lot of work in their hands might not be able to divert the resources for a professional quality video like this, useful though it might be. But since they will eventually be running games at conventions it would be great to have perhaps some of their fans to record and edit a session of Loz or Pete running e.g. the RQ GM Pack adventures.

Of course a professionally produced video like the ones at Tabletop would be so much better, so if there is any chance of that kind of thing happening I would love to see it.

P.S.: I originally intended to post this in The Design Mechasism forum but their login gave me a blank page. But since Loz & Pete follow this forum as well, I posted it here instead.

You want a video of me being my normal evil self and psychologically abusing my players, whilst simultaneously twisting the RQ6 rules to whatever I want because I co-wrote them!?! Some folks must be real masochists!

Loz has spent years suffering at my hands, whether sitting him down in a dark room, by himself, to watch a home made mind-**** movie as the prep to entering the game; to running a game in the sauna and saying that whoever leaves suffers instant death, no save. Believe me, you don't want a video of that particular experience...

I truly am an evil, bastard from hell GM.

We won't discuss the Galley Slave incident, either.

We'd love to get something like this put together, but it is a question of time for us. Who knows - we might record one of the 'Winter King' sessions I'll be running this week, so you can see how a nice, kind GM nurtures and cherishes his players, rather than subjecting them to the the roleplaying equivalent of waterboarding...

You want a video of me being my normal evil self and psychologically abusing my players, whilst simultaneously twisting the RQ6 rules to whatever I want because I co-wrote them!?! Some folks must be real masochists!

Ok, not you then, unless you try really hard to be somebody else for a while. Although seeing you being a bastard might be educational in its on right, it might not necessarily the best possible promotion for RuneQuest.

Tut, tut. And I thought evil, abusive GM-ing was a D&D foible, a practice which RuneQuesters were far above. Since the game mechanics don't require characters to kill things and take their stuff to advance and all.

I cut my tabletop gaming teeth on Champions and Classic Traveller, so the whole adversarial GM thing wasn't something I experienced. In the latter game, I had to actively work to keep my players' characters alive (the -- insert name of celestial body here -- is a harsh mistress, and all that). I may have been adversarial during our TOON campaigns, but since cartoon characters can't die, it just wasn't the wrenching experience that I've heard D&D-ers moan about.

Originally Posted by seneschal

Tut, tut. And I thought evil, abusive GM-ing was a D&D foible, a practice which RuneQuesters were far above. Since the game mechanics don't require characters to kill things and take their stuff to advance and all.

The cult of Bstard Gee-Em appeared in an early RQ Fanzine called "Pavic Tales", so RQ GMs are definitely not above being evil or abusive.

I though it was a requirement, actually.

I still have and treasure my copies...

Pete is the Iain Banks of GMs. He's not necessarily a bastard... he just manages to extract the maximum unpleasantness from a situation, both for the characters and the players. There are no sacred cows in a Pete Game; do something stupid, and shit happens. Hell, shit's going to happen anyway, its merely a degree of the shittyness.

The vindictiveness inflicted on the players - like making us roleplay in a sauna to simulate the effects of radiation poisoning - is something else entirely. Pete would call it 'character-forming': in reality its sadism.

In fact, why the hell am I coming out to Sweden this week? Sod this - I'm cancelling my flight!

Originally Posted by seneschal

Since the game mechanics don't require characters to kill things and take their stuff to advance and all.

Well, at least the game mechanics enable GMs to kill player characters. Unfortunately
I did not yet find a good way to take their stuff and advance.