I’m not a big watcher of live stream RPGs, but I do participate in a channel full of great games that are routinely streamed. The Dungeon Musings channel is an unpretentious ‘fourth wall’ channel, of gamers simply playing lots of games from back in the day and today (to coin a phrase). There’s no editing, and although the sessions are quite disciplined and well prepared, they also reflect incidental chat and mid session breaks. It’s been a real boon to my gaming to be involved.
Although not a prodigious consumer, I thought I’d try running some streamed games. I have managed one in the past, but not since moving to Linux, nor with Foundry as the VTT. In some ways the VTT is irrelevant as OBS is just pointed to a window on your system. As it happens, I’ll be running a Dragonbane game set in Trudvang, with players taken from the Dungeon Musing’s roster, including Kevin himself. No pressure then!
The basics can be setup quite quickly, but getting the screen to record well, and working out my own sound has been a pain. My voice input is at +350 milliseconds to get good synchronisation with the video. That took a lot of trial and error. Working out the optimal window screen resolution to record at also took some working out. In the end, good old FHD 1920×1080 seems to be the best for legible handouts, though I have gone for -90% on the browser window to enable me to squeeze a bit more in to the window. Maybe if I ever get full fibre to my house, will I be able to up the resolution.
I have ‘quiet’ mic input issues. This seems to be mitigated by having the output going through my earbuds from the Bluetooth speakers, which makes little sense to me. I’ve increased my sound in OBS to +110%. On a test my voice is clear, but it may prove to be something else to keep an eye on, when I only have so many eyes.
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| OBS running in Fedora Workstation |
I’ve put a bit extra in for the game itself to make sure that it runs smoothly, and gives a good experience for the players. The adventure is simple and strongly routed, with some signature Trudvang moments to introduce players to the setting.
You can join me on June 15th at 19:30 BST on YouTube.
If this proves successful, then I might run a series of streamed games on my channel. The measure of success being that I technically can get it working, and that it proves enjoyable. I’ll be looking to showcase some games that perhaps don’t get such a lot of actual play, and my style will be relaxed and ‘fourth wall’.
Possibles include: DragonQuest, Heroic Fantasy, Shadow of the Weird Wizard, Alternity, The Chronicles of Future Earth, Age of Arthur, Gods, Keltia, Infinity 2D20. The muse may promote others.
It would be great to showcase games that are not widely known or that have apparently ‘had their day’.
Appreciating that not all my gaming buddies like the idea of live actual play, I suspect this will form just another string to the bow, rather than the main volley to my gaming.