TRPG in Online Format - Observation, Analysis, and Commentary

Great. I'm about 1/3 through. The production value is awesome. I have some notes on the GMing but I'm not sure where to post them to, so I'll post some comments here instead of on the video comments.

'Legends Through Shadow' does a wonderful job on the technical production side. Very impressive. The voice acting and costumes are great. The story feels like it is a bit of an uphill battle as the GM chose a "mystery" setup which didn't help to bring the characters squarely together in a simple and cohesive manner at the start. While I am enjoying the production, I also feel like after an hour that the players are a bit daunted by the uncertainty of the situation, and possibly a bit frustrated.

Anyway, I'm hugely impressed even if it isn't absolutely 100% perfect. It nevertheless gets a huge number of "necessaries" absolutely right imo. Those are:

1. GM's Voice acting is solid and interesting
2. Costumed players - awesome.
3. The production quality of the mask and editing - great.
4. The GM has excellent command of pacing.
5. The Players do some solid character acting - fun.
6. An interesting mix of Player Characters.
7. Love the production effects - smoke behind the GM, the ongoing drawings of characters in the middle, etc.

On the critical side I would make the following points:

1. The story development needed to bring the PCs together more coherently and firmly, and I would have avoided the "mystery" start. One of the standard rules of RPGs is "Don't split the party", and there are a number of reasons for this. But in this case the party starts out split. It feels like pulling them together coherently therefore becomes something of an uphill battle that could have been avoided.

2. I'm not sure but it felt like some of the NPCs were the same character. The GM may need to add more distinct voices to his repertoire. Again, not sure, but that was my impression.

3. The Players should all have backdrops that reflect their character in the same way as the costumes (ie - Talia has what looks like a dorm room behind her). Dark background is perfectly acceptable as well, and better than something that distracts from the 'scene'.

4. The GM lost an opportunity to also be in costume, and that would have helped. I'm not sure what costume would be appropriate other than the usual cowl but something other than casual dress. As it is it is a bit of a disconnect visually.

5. The GM laughs too much, and while it's cool to see he's enjoying himself, it also distracts the audience, and breaks immersion. The GM should try to always stay in Character - either as Narrator, or as an NPC. This will help to keep the audience engaged.

6. Every scene should have a story purpose, other than "they did this in order to get to the next point". Each scene should introduce or contain a story element that has meaning in the context of the overall adventure.

In general we need to keep in mind that this kind of production may have any number of goals. Some that come to mind are:

1. Have fun.

2. Produce something that an audience will find entertaining.

3. Produce a literary quality story.

4. Produce a high quality theatrical production.

5. Play a tactical combat game (whether theater of the mind or board based).

6. Make money.

I suggest that it's a good idea to have a list of the actual goals and what their priority levels are written out. The reason why is that sometimes the goals will be at odds with each other, and so prioritizing will help to keep the production consistent according to the goal set.

My understanding is that the GM is a newbie. So I do want to say that he's doing a great job at it. He's got a lot of natural talent. But there are many skills to GMing that are all required in order to bring a game together. One of those is the guidance of the plot. When the GM's plot is too complicated (I know from personal experience) the player can get lost in the miasma. Or simply wind up confused as to the purpose or direction they should take. Sometimes that can be fine, if you are planning a long term campaign and want to start off with mystery and intrigue. However, if you have a primary goal to appeal to an audience, you may want to avoid that. Not only can the players get a bit lost, but consider that the effect may confuse or frustrate the audience to an even greater degree than the players - which may cause the audience to just 'tune out' and lose the thread.

And so that's an example of where there can be conflicting requirements in terms of goals. Sometimes what is good for the game is not good for the audience. Sometimes what is good for the players is not good for the audience as well. And sometimes if you focus on what's good for the audience it can lead to having to tamp down on things that would have been good for the players or the story. It's a balancing act, and somewhat like trying to push a bump down on the carpet. You push it down here, but it pops up somewhere else.

Overall, I want to say this is one of the better productions of this kind that I've seen to date. Especially the editing and production value. Very very good work. Story development needs a bit of help, but the GMing is quite good just the same. I'm eager to see where they take this going forward.

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On a side note... I'd love to know how was this effort was organized. How was it planned, how were the players and GM drawn together? How was the story developed? How was the editing done? I'd love to see a documentary on how this was pulled together. I think that information would be helpful to others who may want to follow in these footsteps and produce their own Theatrical RPG streams. The problem for a lot of people who might wish to do so is that getting set up requires a goodly number of skills which many GMs / Players may not have (such as video editing, creating masks for production, artwork, etc).

I'm wondering if we can find a way to help GMs and Players to get set up with this kind of RPG theater production? Perhaps by providing a way for theatrical-minded GMs and Players to connect, and helps them to set up the technical production side of things by organizing groups that have all the right skill sets combined.

I feel like we need a lot of these groups in order to perfect the concept. And I myself would love to be exploring this space and have acquired but not perfected a number of the related skills (some video editing, some experience with audacity, some experience with creating masks and OBS streaming - just enough to be able to set up something end to end, but not enough to do it with top notch quality yet).

Thanks for the feedback! I have posted your comments in the Discord App chatroom the DM likes to use.