The term ‘actual-play’ has become fairly common in the RPG podcast vernacular, so let’s talk a little bit about how we do things here at the Damage Guild. We started the show knowing we wanted it to include a few things:
- Top-notch audio quality
- A consistent release schedule
- Edits for content and pacing
- Fully-realized characters
- A riveting storyline
- 5th Edition D&D
- Tons of fun
Toward those goals, we began recording in October of 2017, a full seven months before the release of our first episode. We each invested in our own professional-quality recording equipment to be sure the sound was solid from the start – none of this “the audio sucks at first, but it gets better” stuff you so often hear when it comes to podcasts getting off the ground. We didn’t want to make anyone suffer through hours of garbage-noise to get to the good stuff.
As mentioned on our worldbuilding page, we also spent some time together creating a brief history of Grisanth, the homebrew game world we would be playing in. Alongside that effort, we drafted and filled out detailed questionnaires during character creation to go beyond the stock background system in D&D’s 5th Edition, so that our characters would be fully fleshed-out, fully realized entities that felt more like people than cardboard cutouts with stat blocks.
We also knew we were going to be playing remotely, as getting together in the same physical location on a regular basis (a week night, no less) would’ve been prohibitive given our schedules. It’s a good thing we decided this ahead of time, because when Sean took his job in Philadelphia it became quite literally impossible to gather without the aid of the internet.
So we knew we needed a reliable web conferencing app, and talked briefly about using a virtual tabletop like Roll20 or similar. The gaming group we’d been playing with for years had always used maps and miniatures, but for us the quality of our communication took precedence over keeping in our comfort zone. Thereby, we decided to branch out and settled on a ‘theatre of the mind’ style campaign in which the DM would be responsible for painting a word picture of every scenario, allowing us to drive combat from more of a narrative standpoint than simple five-foot squares would’ve allowed.
We weren’t going to settle for one person making phone-quality Skype recordings of everyone else, so we decided each of us would record our own performances separately and sync them during post-production. This gave us the flexibility of a self-contained ‘sound booth’ for each cast member – a powerful setup that would make editing far easier, and bring us as close to a studio recording setup as you can get in your own home.
Discord proved the optimal choice for a conferencing app, with its (brand-new at the time) group video chat and an array of other features geared towards gamers. Audacity was the recording software we used to commit our performances to digital tape. With the technical side of things out of the way, we were ready to start playing. Here’s where we get into the meat ‘n potatoes of this article – what the term ‘actual play’ means to us, the Damage Guild, and to you, our listener.
Dungeons & Dragons is make-believe for adults. That’s how I’ve always described it to curious non-nerdy friends who have asked about my hobbies and interests. It’s a tabletop game, yes, but it takes far longer to play than a round of Monopoly. There’s a perpetuity to the game; a continuous, cyclical nature. You set out on a new adventure, get into trouble, overcome that trouble (hopefully), and then start the cycle over again. It’s facing danger in someone else’s shoes. It’s living a life of thrills through the eyes of another.
And just like in real life, there are downtimes. There are spaces between the excitement. There are periods of deep thought, of uncertainty, of boredom, of not knowing where you’re going or what you’re going to do next. D&D is about choices, just like life is about choices. Except instead of one person making a decision for themselves, as most often happens in real life, it is an entire party group – a committee – of people, making those choices together, for all involved. Everybody has to agree, or the game (and thus, the story) can’t move forward.
Playing D&D with a large group is like being married to three or four other people, each with their own preferences and quirks and proclivities. The discussions of where to go next are often interesting and engaging, and they can introduce a compelling sort of conflict into the relationships between the player characters. But it’s the togetherness, the movement toward a mutual goal, and the understanding that sooner or later each of these decisions need to get made in a mutually satisfactory way, that gives the players their sense of camaraderie and turns them from disparate individuals into a cohesive unit. Because relationships aren’t built when things are easy. Relationships are truly forged on the thick and thin, the ups and downs, the times when the going is rough and about to get rougher.
So when we set out to create an ‘actual play’ podcast, we wanted the focus of the show to be on those decisions. On the adventure, the danger, the uncertainty, and the interplay between individuals who can only achieve their goals if they are working as parts of a greater machine. We didn’t want to make our listeners slog through the thought gaps, the moments of silence, the page-turning parts of rules reviews, or the long moments of fumbling around on the table in search of the right dice for the job.
These moments have their place, and they can be enjoyable for the people playing the game. But for the people listening, we felt that downtime didn’t add much to the experience, and often does more to take away from it. That’s why when you listen to the Damage Guild Podcast, you won’t hear us playing our raw, uncut, unpolished, real-time game. You’ll hear story and character and the actual play of the important bits, without any of the things between. That may not be for everyone, but it was definitely for us when we started out on this journey, so we hope you’re one of the people who enjoys it as well.
The Damage Guild is unofficial Fan Content permitted under the Fan Content Policy. Not approved/endorsed by Wizards. Portions of the materials used are property of Wizards of the Coast. ©Wizards of the Coast LLC.