Hey Everyone Let's (airhorn) PODCAAAAAAAAST

(I'm spinning off a discussion from another thread and reposting bits of it to start us off.)

Me:
I'd love to listen to board game podcasts, but I can't find anything that talks about playing games, and thoughts about playing games. It's all reviewing games (always positively) and game design, because the only thing better than buying games is making more games.

Gary Sax:
This paragraph really resonated with me. Like, I drive almost 20 hours a week 7 months a year and listen to podcasts and audiobooks the whole time. But the only board game podcast I listen to is ding and dent, but even that is more review-ey than I'd ideally like. I think what we need is the equivalent of a games club podcast for videogames (something like Watch Out for Fireballs if you've ever heard that), I would listen to that every week or however often it came out.

Frohike:
Mark Bigney (of All The Games You Like Are Bad notoriety) now publishes a weekly podcast titled So Very Wrong About Games which goes a little beyond reviews. While they do provide impressions of games & general session reports, they tend to return to games repeatedly and provide updates on how their opinion has shifted with more plays, etc. It's the only cast I listen to besides Ding & Dent.

cdennett:
QFT. Those two podcasts (and Englestein's Gametek) are pretty much the only ones I get excited about listening to.

charlest:
Not intending to derail, but If anyone has any specific suggestions for Ding & Dent, please let me know. We'd shift our direction on a dime if it made people happy.

We definitely appreciate your ears and time.

bfkiller:
*shameless plug for Of Dice & Men*

Sagrilarus:
I'm listening to these guys [So Very Wrong] bitch about "component quality" for the second game in five minutes, episode 2. "It's such a bizarre and strange development". "can only take away from the visual effect of the game." "Strange, jarring, and discordant".

No one talks about gaming anymore.

Rant over. Carry on.

me:
I've listened to So Very Wrong and it's okay, though I'm sick of hearing about Rising Sun. It's generally more along the lines of what I'm looking for.

(But also, yeah, as has been pointed out, they're all into that Pile o Plastic stuff that I couldn't care less about, and on the assumption that "sure, if it has minis, it's gonna be worth checking out right away!")

I don't dislike the SU&SD Podcast and will put it on when my other podcasts haven't updated yet. While often bungled up in having to talk about the newest hype, if they didn't like a game they will say so and try to talk about why. This ends up in the podcast because they don't like to do bad reviews. Also once in a while they do features. Their main goal is to get more people into gaming, so they tend to prefer fun games to any other kind. Also, they seem to be nearly intolerably nice people.
The best gaming podcast is still the Wolfman's lounge. Not everyone's cup of tea, I guess, because it's pretty free-form rambling and there sure is alcohol involved. Also, gaming is just one topic of many. But everyone on this site knows about it, RIGHT?

If someone thinks about doing this for the site, I would definitely listen to all of it. But, if you don't want to be a news channel or just some people having a nice chat, you need some serious preparation and long-term writing.

Nodens wrote: But, if you don't want to be a news channel or just some people having a nice chat, you need some serious preparation and long-term writing.

Truth. Also, the absolute worst thing a podcast can do is try to give a rules overview of a game, which so many game podcasts do ALL THE TIME. Whenever someone starts reading a rulebook to me out loud it makes me want to actively die.

I'm open to a capped for time rule/flow description of the game. But definitely needs to be show noted for when the actual game discussion begins so people can skip. I think it's naive to think that people don't want to listen to podcasts for games they haven't played. I think from a practical perspective giving no descriptive game overview (not pedantic rules run through) is important to maintain an audience.

Yeah, I don't necessarily mind when folks describe how a game is played, but if they're any good at podcastin' they should be able to communicate important game concepts without a dreadfully dull step-by-step breakdown. I should be able to get a sense of how the game feels to play without needing to know every mechanic that goes into creating this feeling.

To be fair re: So Very Wrong, they do return to Rising Sun a couple of times and progressively cool on it, which is actually interesting to listen to; especially Mark's initial suspicions that the "negotiation" aspect wasn't as prominent as was marketed. The latest ep re: Mage Knight is also a good retrospective on that game & includes some criticisms.

That sounds interesting, I'll have to check it out.

I definitely find my opinion of some games cooling or heating up on repeated plays, it's actually one of the reasons I think talking about old games is so important.

BaronDonut wrote: Yeah, I don't necessarily mind when folks describe how a game is played, but if they're any good at podcastin' they should be able to communicate important game concepts without a dreadfully dull step-by-step breakdown. I should be able to get a sense of how the game feels to play without needing to know every mechanic that goes into creating this feeling.

Yeah, and a big part of this is that you need to be more of a broadcaster than a game player in order to execute that concept effectively. There's virtually no one in the industry that meets those requirements at the moment. If you listen to someone like Leo LaPorte you quickly realize that's the case. He's a showman first, and that's necessary regardless of topic.

Like it or not, very few of us gamers are qualified to host a recorded conversation. Wil Wheaton may be the most qualified host that actively working, and frankly I don't think he's particularly good at it.

FATcast had it, and their interviews of Buonocore and other people in the industry had a level of entertainment that stepped well beyond the scope of a particular game and how it's played. They covered games, but they expanded the conversation to give the topic more life than it would have had otherwise. The couple of times I sat down with Loter to record material it was always a blast, largely because he understood when to come up for air. That's something that a speaker understands, not a gamer. Don't recall if I sat down with Josh on any of those sessions at WBC . . . you there Josh? I think you may have been for one of them. GMT interview. You and Matt had a rapport that kept things interesting.

BaronDonut wrote: Yeah, I don't necessarily mind when folks describe how a game is played, but if they're any good at podcastin' they should be able to communicate important game concepts without a dreadfully dull step-by-step breakdown. I should be able to get a sense of how the game feels to play without needing to know every mechanic that goes into creating this feeling.

This is where breadth of experience , or lack thereof, comes in . Reviewers with a lot of experience can often draw comparisons to other games to quickly summarize/compare.

Other than Boardgames To Go (which comes out rarely, is produced by a friend of mine, and I'm occasionally a guest), I don't listen to any board game podcasts.

However, I listen to quite a few movie podcasts. One fairly new one that I enjoy is The Next Picture Show. They do a round-table discussion of an old movie and how it relates to a new movie. For example, they recently compared Tron to Ready Player One. They talk about the context in which they were released, reception at the time versus now, and other general and/or specific relevant details.

I think this format could work well for board games. I'm specifically NOT talking about "games that fired other games" (a phrase I despise), but more of a reasoned comparison about how one game may have influenced another, or how two different games tackled a particular design issue differently. Like the movie podcast assumes listeners have seen the movies, you could assume listeners have played both games and forego any rules recaps and just focus on *how* they played.

It might take a little more prep to come up with the pairings, but I think with the right panel it could be very interesting.

Frohike wrote: To be fair re: So Very Wrong, they do return to Rising Sun a couple of times and progressively cool on it, which is actually interesting to listen to; especially Mark's initial suspicions that the "negotiation" aspect wasn't as prominent as was marketed. The latest ep re: Mage Knight is also a good retrospective on that game & includes some criticisms.

I've listened to the new one and it's a good example of why I find this podcast frustrating. I like a lot about it, and I like a lot of the discussion, but here's a criticism of Mage Knight:

"the second expansion introduced a new character who is terrible."
ok, why?
"because the mini is bad and doesn't look like the box art"
ok but how does the character play?
"did you not hear me? the mini was bad"

I can't take shit like that seriously.

And, of course, there's an obligatory Rising Sun reference earlier in the podcast.

Gregarius wrote: Other than Boardgames To Go (which comes out rarely, is produced by a friend of mine, and I'm occasionally a guest), I don't listen to any board game podcasts.

However, I listen to quite a few movie podcasts. One fairly new one that I enjoy is The Next Picture Show. They do a round-table discussion of an old movie and how it relates to a new movie. For example, they recently compared Tron to Ready Player One. They talk about the context in which they were released, reception at the time versus now, and other general and/or specific relevant details.

I think this format could work well for board games. I'm specifically NOT talking about "games that fired other games" (a phrase I despise), but more of a reasoned comparison about how one game may have influenced another, or how two different games tackled a particular design issue differently. Like the movie podcast assumes listeners have seen the movies, you could assume listeners have played both games and forego any rules recaps and just focus on *how* they played.

It might take a little more prep to come up with the pairings, but I think with the right panel it could be very interesting.

That's an excellent format, however, the biggest challenges in this hobby is that you would need a panel of people that all had the necessary experience with a game.

Could you even select four people on this forum that had enough experience with the same newer and older release to make those comments? I can't even think of a single new game that four distinct members of this community have played. Maybe Cthulhu Wars or Terraforming Mars?

A film like Ready Player One is much easier to consume. Two hours and some critical thought and you're good.

Now a game, that requires multiple plays, tracking the game down somehow, and organizing groups. We're talking weeks of commitment.

Legomancer wrote: I can't take shit like that seriously.

I don't think it's supposed to be taken seriously. Mark can randomly shift into a weird brand of sarcasm that doesn't always click.

Edit: finished the episode. Their discussion of component quality didn’t detract from the overall criticism and was well contextualized IMO. I’m... honestly not completely averse to hearing *some* discussion of games as objects, because they are just that. It’s like having a discussion about a painting and maybe getting into the pigment that was used. I’m ok with that as long as that element is significant somehow in appreciating the object.

The major problems with most gaming podcasts:
- The presenters have little personality. They’re boring.
- They mostly do reviews.
- Very few things are more boring than boring people talking in boring terms about a board game review, which is arguably a very boring subject.

charlest wrote: Could you even select four people on this forum that had enough experience with the same newer and older release to make those comments? I can't even think of a single new game that four distinct members of this community have played. Maybe Cthulhu Wars or Terraforming Mars?

This is definitely difficult. I imagine that Spirit Island is a newer game that several of us have played. However, I think the harder thing would be the older games, unless we limit it to post 2005 or something.