Titansgrave: Ashes of Valkana | Episode 1 Review

I was pretty skeptical when I first heard the news that Geek & Sundry would be running a Tabletop Roleplaying Game Let's Play with Wil Wheaton as the Game Master. I wasn't skeptical that Geek & Sundry would actually produce the show, rather I was skeptical that it would work as a piece of entertainment.

I've been a fan of playing RPGs since I was ten years old, but I've learned one thing from standing around watching RPGA sessions at various conventions. With the exception of the fictional world of the Gold web series, where roleplaying games are a spectator sport, it isn't often fun to watch other people play them. There are so many ways that the spectator experience can be fouled. The Game Master might not be willing to engage in theatrics. The Game Master may be bad at theatrics...although that can have its own short term entertainment value. The medium isn't very visual on its own and requires participants to fill in the "spectacle" of the tale. The players may not be evocative in their explanations of what their characters are doing. The game play might get caught up in the spiral of discussing things that aren't at all game related, and thus turn the experience into merely watching a conversation about which version of Highlander 2 is worth watching.

The answer is neither.

It's one thing for a roleplaying game session to be fun for the participants, which it can be with all the above failures, it's quite another for it to be fun to watch.

David Nett and his friends did a great job of creating an entertaining to watch roleplaying game experience with their second season of Gold entitled Night of the Zombie King, but they did so in an entirely scripted format where the roleplaying game session was merely the setting for a host of dramatic tensions. Being scripted, the session is also heavily edited and time compressed. The question is whether the entertainment value of a well-written and well acted "scripted simulation" of a roleplaying session can be recreated in a real gaming session where things are much looser.

If the first episode of TitansGrave: Ashes of Valkana is any indication, the answer is yes. I won't say that it is a "resounding yes," for reasons I'll articulate as the review goes along, but I will say that Geek & Sundry did manage to create an entertaining viewing experience.

WHAT'S GOOD ABOUT TITANSGRAVE

Before I comment on what I believe the show has done wrong, let me begin by praising what it got correct. A lot of work went into producing this web series, and it shows. Wil Wheaton has recruited a number of actors, of the tradition and voice varieties, to play the game with him. Before you assume that the "recruiting of actors" means the "recruiting of non-gamers/non-geeks," let me cue you in on a little secret. D&D is the secret language of Hollywood. There is an entire community of rpg geeks in tinseltown, and while not everyone games a lot do.

The show has also selected a game system, the AGE system from Green Ronin, that has a lot of improvisational narrative potential. All roleplaying games have at their root the potential for improvisational narrative, it is after all what really defines a roleplaying game, but given the tactical wargame roots of the hobby the game can sometimes descend into a series of "I roll a 13, I do 5 damage, You roll a 15, I take 3 damage" comments that are mindnumbing to watch. Roleplaying is best watched when "roles" are being "played" and that means that actions are being described rather than mere die rolls. AGE's "stunt point" system aids in making combat sequences more narrative, rather than quantitative, by mechanically encouraging players to create descriptions of their actions in return for benefits. Players respond to incentives, and if you incentivize narrative descriptions you tend to get more of them.

The show hired adventure writers from the game industry who worked with Wil Wheaton to bring about his world. It's one thing to hire talented writers, but it is another thing to hire people who can take a story and translate it into a game experience. Experienced adventure writers have a knack for it. It takes more than breaking a story down beat by beat and then creating stats to gamify a story. It takes an intuition regarding how players will respond to circumstances. You also need to be able to create a small enough segment of a story that it can be played (after being edited) in less than an hour and still have narrative movement. This includes taking into account the delay that mechanics will cause as actions are resolved. What separates roleplaying games from mere improvisational theater is the fact that actions are arbitrated by mechanics. This is something that not only is at the core of what makes roleplaying games "games," but is a key to ensuring that all players get an equal chance to participate/succeed.

Hiring Wes Otis for the sound effects and musical loops was wise. Otis has done good work as a sound professional, but he has also made some great effects for home play.

The show is well edited, which cuts down on the digressions that players are prone to making, and has incorporated sound effects and some minor animations to increase the visual appeal. The editing is key for this show, and they seem to know it. They have edited out the distracting digressions, while leaving some of the more entertaining ones in, which gives the session a nice play flow.

The cast does a good job of staying interesting without trying too hard. One of my person peeves when watching some episodes of Tabletop is that the players often seem to be trying too hard to entertain. They seem to have the sense that watching a board game isn't exciting in and of itself, and thus feel the need to spice it up. Wil Wheaton, Hank Green, Laura Bailey, Yuri Lowenthal, and Alison Haislip may be doing that a little in TitansGrave, but it is indistinguishable from the normal one-upsmanship I've witnessed in my playing experience.

WEAKNESSES

This show is not made for a wide audience. It's hard to tell if the show is meant to only appeal to those who are already gaming, or whether it is also meant to bring more people in. I say that because the first episode already has a couple of inside jokes that might appeal to long time gamers, but which will be missed by new viewers.  Additionally, the first story is "age confined" in that they had to bleep out profanity and that it's about drinking. This isn't a bad thing per se, and I found it quite entertaining, but it does limit your viewing audience.

Lack of use of voice actor talent. C'mon people! Let's get crazy! We've got funny people here, but they seem to be holding back a little in combat. This could partially be because they are still learning the AGE system, and don't feel comfortable with it, but I want more verbal sound effects from the players. Laura Bailey and Yuri Lowenthal are trending in this direction, but I want more as a viewer. You really can't "commit" too much for me. Think about it like a comedic role. You have to be willing to fully commit to the joke/process. That doesn't mean go over the top, but it does mean you have to immerse yourself in the play and lose the wall of "I'm being judged."

The show hasn't quite captured a way to make the depiction of combat visually interesting. I both like and dislike the battle display they are doing. I like that they aren't showing miniatures on the table, which can be good are bad for spectators, allowing the actors to free form act rather than move game pieces. What isn't working for me is how static the display is. If you are going to present a graphic virtual tabletop, have the images move about on the hologrid you've presented. I also noticed that Wil Wheaton began to fall into the "I roll an x and do y damage" drone. It's hard not to, and Wheaton was great most of the time, but it's something he'll need to fight.

The show isn't perfect, but it did entertain me. We'll see how the season progresses. One thing is certain, I will keep watching. I will also be buying the tabletop campaign supplement as soon as Green Ronin releases it.

12-Sided Die: Should You Be Game for this New Webseries?

Earlier today, the team @12sideddie blasted the internet with a solicitation of their new gaming themed web series 12 Sided Die.

12 Sided Die is a web series directed by Daniel Murphy and written by Curtis Fortier that is aimed at the table top gaming community. According to the show's website, the show is:

A hilarious new web-series about romance, geeks, and graph paper.

Our hero: Curtis Foster, Permit Processor by day, Level Fourteen Wizard Warrior by night.

If theres one thing Curtis loves most on this Earth, it's playing a rousing game of "Swords and Swordsmen" with his friends Chris and Eric.

Sadly, the group is growing older... Eric is newly married, Chris is a father, and the time between games is growing larger with each passing day.

So, on their eve of their first game in over six months, when the stakes have never been higher, Curtis is convinced that nothing can get in his way.

Except, perhaps, a surprise distraction of his own: his neighbor Cynthia.

But is the show hilarious, and does it really capture geek romance?

The answer to this central question is maybe. The first episode of the series (embedded below) suffers from a significant dose of what I like to call "pilotitis." This is the slight awkwardness that many pilot episodes suffer from which fails to capture the full potential of the idea underlying the show, or the talent of the creators and performers of the show. A good historical example of pilotitis is Star Trek. The show's original pilot was pretty bad, but by the time they reworked the show for the second pilot the show's potential really shined through.

12 Sided Die has a good concept. It's a show about gamers and romance, but it is also a show about the difficulties of balancing a hobby with real life. Anyone who has played games, or had a passionate hobby, in their post-college/high school years understands how difficult in can be to find the proper balance in time to meet all your obligations and still find time for your hobbies. For example, I love playing board and role playing games. I also love running around the park with my wife and daughters, the allure of spending time with History and Mystery (our 3 1/2 year old twins) is a pretty significant obstacle to making time to play games. I am thankful that the girls really like the people who come over to game twice a month, and even more grateful that my friends like spending time with the girls. To be honest, if they weren't willing to let the girls "watch" us play it would be a deal breaker. History and Mystery would win out in the battle of hobby vs. family and which provides more joy. That said, my group does enjoy having the girls come around and the girls love to play with our "little men." It's that kind of tension, though other tensions as well, that underlie the dramatic/comedic conflicts of 12 Sided Die. Just add a dose of 30 something and single/looking for a relationship, and you've captured the show perfectly.

Back to the show's pilotitis. It leaps out at you from the first scene. The lighting during the play session in the opening is a distraction. The room looks unnaturally yellow, when it should be lit to look like a normally lit apartment. The problem is that they filmed a normally lit apartment, and normally lit apartments don't look like normally lit apartments on film. This scene is also a tad overacted. While Christopher Gehrman's over the top performance as the dungeon master can be forgiven, as he's playing an over the top dungeon master, Curtis Fortier's performance in this scene needs to be backed down a little. Not his "in character" performance, but his "I'm so excited about where the game campaign is going" performance, the same should be said of Eric Vesbit's performance in the scene as well. As the show progresses, the actors seem to fall into more natural rhythms and I don't see this being a problem in the long haul. It is just something that needs to be pointed out. As Hamlet would say:

Speak the speech, I pray you, as I pronounced it to
you, trippingly on the tongue:but if you mouth it,
as many of your players do, I had as lief the
town-crier spoke my lines. Nor do not saw the air
too much with your hand, thus, but use all gently;
for in the very torrent, tempest, and, as I may say,
the whirlwind of passion, you must acquire and beget
a temperance that may give it smoothness. O, it
offends me to the soul to hear a robustious
periwig-pated fellow tear a passion to tatters, to
very rags, to split the ears of the groundlings, who
for the most part are capable of nothing but
inexplicable dumbshows and noise: I would have such
a fellow whipped for o'erdoing Termagant; it
out-herods Herod: pray you, avoid it.

It should also be noted that the sound design is a bit off. There is an overuse of score, and the individual sound edits don't always match up with what I'm supposed to be hearing. This is particularly acute during a scene in which Curtis makes himself some "Strawberry Milk."

The show's strongest suit is in the story, it has a nicely done cliffhanger that is timed almost perfectly. This is a tale of a group who hasn't met to continue their game for almost 6-months given their current responsibilities, what happens when a new romance enters one of their lives? It's a nice touch, and well done. Kristina Lynn Bell is a nice choice for the romantic interest. I was a bit concerned with her introductory performance. Her acting to the audience "behind the fourth wall" started out a tad over the top, but by the end of the scene she won me over. The camera angles were bit off, but her performance really started to hit a sweet spot.

All of this can be written off as pilotitis, and I will certainly return for a second episode. The show as it stands did leave me wanting to see what happens next. It really left me wanting to see what happens next.   So...what happens next?!

But there was one thing that I couldn't quite write off as pilotitis, and it affected the verisimilitude of the entire show. That was the use of "made up game mechanics" that didn't quite sound like real game mechanics. I can understand, and appreciate, the desire to avoid violating other people's copyright. But in a d20 license world, there is no reason for a character to utter the line, "I'll cast my Pyro spell." Especially when one could just as easily say "I'll cast my Fireball." Heck, even in a pre-OGL world, you could have gotten away with that. This was magnified by the fact that the writers were willing to include real world references to Coke and Mountain Dew, but stumbled at the mention of concepts that would most appeal to their target audience. Don't be afraid to say D&D. Even better, if you want to have a little "geek cred" as Erik Mona and crew at Paizo if you can use the Pathfinder brand as your game of choice. If they say no, it doesn't matter. The rules are Open, just avoid Golarion specific references.

All of my criticisms are written with the understanding that these people are working really hard to provide something entertaining that they really believe in (see Jody Lindke's recent blog post on the subject).   But they are also written in the hopes that the show will address small problems and continue to improve.  There is something here.  Something that is already worth watching, for gamers, but it is something that could appeal to an even broader audience if it continues to improve on its strengths and address any weaknesses.  Entertaining people at all is hard.  The 12 Sided Die crew have already succeeded in entertaining me, now I want them to blow me away.

12 Sided Die - Episode 1: To Be Continued from Daniel Murphy on Vimeo.

SyFy's Mercury Men -- "Skyscraper Saboteurs"

"Skyscraper Saboteurs," the second episode of the intriguing Mercury Men web series, went live this morning. The episode builds on all the qualities that worked in the first episode, and features fewer of the drawbacks. It appears that the series is quickly getting past the sense of "pilotitis" I felt regarding the first episode.

The series takes place in Pittsburgh in 1975 where Jack Yeager (Curt Wootton) -- a character wonderfully inspired by classic pulp figures -- discovers a sinister plan by Venusian invaders, a plan that only he can stop. Lucky for the Earth, Jack is a combination Flash Gordon, Doc Savage, and Blackhawk:

Daring League captain, aerospace engineer, and former US Air Force pilot, Jack travels the galaxy to explore unknown worlds, new alien races, and advanced technological wonders. Always at Jack's side is the Lumiére, his trusted revolver which fires bolts of condensed light. Jack is dispatched to Earth to investigate the glowing men of Mercury.

Like the pilot, I do have some complements and criticisms regarding the episode, but watch the episode first. It is well worth your time. Join me in discovering the sinister plan of the Mercury Men!

Pros:

I've got to give the production team at Mercury Men Pictures credit for their focus on sound design. Poor design can really tank a feature, particularly a genre feature, but the MMP crew have added some interesting environmental sound effects that add depth to the feature. I am particularly fond of the "fuzz" sound of the Mercury Men themselves.

The visuals continue to be fairly impressive. I was particularly impressed by the scene where our heroes were on one side of a wall constructed of glass bricks, and the Mercury Men were on the other. The image where we look through Jack's looking glass was also impressive as it included "warping" around the edges and was more than a mere "circular cutout" image. Jack's hologram projector was a nice touch, and a nice effect.

Like the serials that Mercury Men is based upon, the MMP crew use a lot of visual storytelling. When the Mercury Men's plan is revealed, it is shown and not told. Very nice!

Cons:

I still find Mark Tierno's performance as Edward Borman a little forced. He seems to be acting in a style more akin to silent films than talkies. He isn't bad, but his movements have an odd fluidity that seems natural in a purely visual story. His line delivery is good, but I'm on the fence. If Edward gets blasted by the invaders I won't be overly distraught.

When Jack and Edward are walking down a stairway there is a wipe effect -- a nice homage to the serials -- that goes against the movement of the action taking place. This has the visual effect of slowing down the pace of the story and decreasing urgency. It almost feels as if the action is being rewound. I think wipes should follow movement, not run against the grain. Just a personal opinion.

Now that I've seen the story so far, I am more convinced than ever that I need to lift ideas from it for a short term Savage Worlds or Cortex+ campaign. I will certainly be statting up some of the characters as the show goes on and we learn more about them.

The MMP crew have captured the tone perfectly. This show is obviously done of love of the material and lacks the kind of ironic distance that too often seeps into the gaps and ruins a good story. Let's hope they keep it up. If their website, and their digital props, are any hint I think they will.

I already wish they'd build a flash based game based on their fictional Atari 2600 game.

GOLD Webseries Posts First "Companion" Series Trailer

David Nett and company have posted a trailer for a one-shot spin-off webisode of their popular GOLD rpg gamer drama web series entitled NIGHT OF THE ZOMBIE KING. From the looks of the trailer, this one shot will lack some of the features that rubbed me the wrong way in the original series. I still think the original series is entertaining and well crafted, but this trailer hints that the storytelling talents of the GOLD crew are getting better and better.



My one complaint regarding the performances in the trailer is that the physical conflict in the middle looks forced and inorganic. As such, itloses some of the dramatic power it could otherwise have.

GOLD -- The Web Series that Does HALF Damage

If you want to see an excellent independent drama/comedy that focuses on Generation X geek culture, go watch FREE ENTERPRISE written by Robert Meyer Burnett and Mark A. Altman. The film combines a solidly humorous "turning 30" narrative with constant LOGAN'S RUN, STAR TREK, STAR WARS, and comic book references. If SWINGERS weren't already the geek's version of SWINGERS, then FREE ENTERPRISE would easily take that slot in film canon. Oh...and it has William Shatner as an actor named William Shatner who wants to make a musical version of JULIUS CAESAR with William Shatner performing all the speaking roles. The film is hilarious and on target.



GOLD, a web series created by David Nett, is an attempt to for gaming what FREE ENTERPRISE did for the rest of Generation X geek culture. That is to say that it attempts to create a compelling drama around the lives of a group of individuals how happen to be professional role playing gamers. Every work of fiction has its one "gimme," in the world of GOLD that gimme is that there is a role playing game league that has enough fans who wish to watch games being played that role playing is a professional sport. Other than that, the world is our world.

If I were of a mind to do it, I could make almost endless comparisons between GOLD the web series and FREE ENTERPRISE. One of GOLD'S co-protagonists is a tad whiny and fails to seize the initiative while wallowing in his own personal drama, like the character played by Eric McCormack in ENTERPRISE. Both have nightmare's related to their "drama." The other of GOLD'S co-protagonists sleeps around with people he has disdain for, and is the "cooler" of the co-protagonists. FREE ENTERPRISE'S Rafer Weigel character comes quickly to mind. But there are enough differences between the two that I believe that the similarities are coincidental, especially given the differences in the overall tone and narrative.

Some comparisons need to be made, because FREE ENTERPRISE did such a good job of translating geek culture to a wider audience, but not beat by beat comparisons.

I want to love GOLD. It is attempting, unlike most gamer web series, to present a serious drama series focused around the lives of gamers. Sometimes it succeeds, but most of the time it seems to suffer from what I call "pilotitis."

Pilotitis is when a show's pilot presents the viewer with an intriguing premise -- that is for the most part well done -- but that feels ragged around the edges. That describes GOLD to a T.

It's six 10-minute episodes equate roughly to an hour long drama pilot, and the overall story is interesting. The show isn't about gaming, it's about the people who play role playing games. This is where the show shines. The character interactions are believable and often compelling.

Where the show fails is in translating to its audience what exactly is going on in the narrative. If a viewer were to jump in at episode two without a knowledge of role playing games -- and without reading the background on the About tab of the GOLD website -- that viewer would feel lost to some extent. The episode narrative would be clear, but the season's narrative arc would be unclear.

Jon, one of the co-protagonists of GOLD, is in physical rehabilitation for some sort of injury sustained during a gaming competition. The cause of that injury isn't revealed until the 6th episode of the series. If one watches the prologue and episode one, without reading the website, one might come to believe that the accident happened in the kitchen when Jon was telling his soon to be wife he would still be a while at the game. That's not clear storytelling -- and that is what this show lacks.

It is often said, and rightfully, that stories need to be character driven. They also need to have a narrative that lets the audience see what is happening. An audience watching a visual medium needs to be shown and not told. They also need more than vague implications. They need to see the world at large and how it affects the characters.

Nett and crew get the characterizations right. They get the acting right most of the time, though it is agonizing to watch the acting injured moments. The characterizations are sometimes over the top, but that is appropriate to the genre. If only more of the characters were over the top. If only more of the narrative were over the top. If only there were more humor in the show.

Then the show would be great.

As it is, the show just hits my entertainment Armor Class. Given my desire to like shows in the genre, meaning that my gamer web series AC is lower than normal, I think that the show might struggle outside of the gaming community. It doesn't quite fill in enough information for the uninitiated and uses its website as too much of a crutch for filling in narrative elements that were not shown during the episodes.

For those who are gamers though, GOLD provides the first real attempt at a genuine dramatic entertainment featuring gamers as protagonists. This in and of itself is praiseworthy. The fact that it does a workmanlike job and presents compelling characters is icing on the cake.

If you're a gamer, I recommend watching GOLD and supporting its second season. If you aren't a gamer you should still watch it, but only after reading all of the background information on the website.



PEDANTRY ALERT: Rulebooks from quite a few different roleplaying games are used as props to represent the rules for the "in world" role playing game. Looking for these easter eggs can be a distraction, but they are proof that the creators are people who genuinely love games. Why else would Jon be picking up a copy of the Mayfair Games edition of CHILL? I don't even want to think about all of the licensing problems associated with the DM screens and wall posters in this series.

Buck Rogers Web Series Debuting in 2010

The Dille Trust and Cawley Entertainment will be streaming a new Buck Rogers web series in 2010 and have posted a teaser trailer. When they wrote it was a teaser trailer, they meant it was a teaser trailer. One cannot discern much about what the series will be based in the short trailer available, but a couple of things are pretty clear.

First, there WILL be rocket ships. This is a good thing. One of the major flaws of the Syfy Flash Gordon series was its awkward attempt to write around rocket ships as transportation.

Second, Gil Gerard will be involved in some way. Given that the Gil Gerard series had a good cameo by Buster Crabbe, it's nice to see the Dille trust continuing the tradition of "handing off the baton."

Third, this is Buck Rogers. That in and of itself is enough to spark my interest.

Here is a description of what they intend to bring to the monitor next year:

Executive Producer James Cawley will be bringing Buck back to his beginnings telling the story from the perspective of a 22 year old Buck Rogers who leaves World War One and is propelled into the 25th Century. “We will be using the technology we have today, to present The Original version of The First Sci-Fi Hero ever! Previous filmed incarnations never really captured the original Buck from the comic strips, which is what we aim to do” Franchise owner, writer and game designer, Flint Dille will be an Executive Producer and Consultant, and will be instrumental in keeping true to the Buck Rogers mythos. Charles Root & Gary Evans who have been instrumental in the success of “New Voyages” will also be serving as Co-Executive Producers for Retro Film studios.

If it is true that they will be aiming to bring the "Original" version of the character to the monitor, some audience members may be turned off by the Yellow Peril nature of the narrative. The early comic strip stories were heavy with Yellow Peril imagery.

While I love rocketships and the classic time period for Buck, the best Buck adaptations -- the Gerard series, the Crabbe serial, the XXIV roleplaying game -- all contained some elements that updated the narrative for "contemporary" audiences. For example, the Gerard series played off of Cold War nuclear holocaust fears and the XXIV game (written by the talented Mike Pondsmith creator of the Cyberpunk rpg for R. Talsorian) incorporated cyberpunk and steampunk narrative elements. I hope this new version does something similar.

Speaking of Mike Pondsmith...one of these days I am going to have to do a post on just how influential this man has been in geek culture and how ahead of his time his concepts have been. Cyberpunk, Steampunk, Mecha, and Dragonball Z...he was there early and deep.