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#170

Mmm, I’m wondering if it’s really a time issue? How are views for yt/vods? Live numbers may not be up there because of time but if a show is a good and people desire, it should reflect on yt/vod views?

I think you gathered a great cast JP. There are just seriously some really really great RP moments on Blades. Like goosebumps on my arm, that was f’ing fantastic moments. But think about it, go back and even watch it all these great moments–they are between the players.

This is a bit too harsh on John but I think part of the reason is the DM’s responsibility. John’s style at the moment not very translatable to production/entertainment. Being a DM is not easy so I say this with a grain of salt: his interactions with the PCs and storytelling is very awkward and “okay that wasn’t super disjointed” for the majority of the sessions I have watched. There is also the fact that the system seems to be very bogged down and create no tangible suspense.

Though when I speak about the system, I don’t know it well enough to know if the system is bogging down the sessions or if the DM is just not great at facilitating things. I don’t know if it’s the system that doesn’t create much suspense for the story or if the DM is not great at using the system’s tools to create suspense to keep the viewer interested.

Also JP you have to factor in the fact that this isn’t the Neal days. There are a growing amount of decent Roleplaying Shows. More and more great amateur/professional DMs with decent to superb production. The standards of storytelling is going up and it’s not as simple as “Omg someone is streaming DnD, let’s watch it cause there isn’t much good production DnD shows out there so let’s watch Rollplay.” People are having more choices so the brand has to grow with that.

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#171

This, I think, is an aspect of Blades In The Dark that just may not have been made nearly clear enough from the outset of the show. It’s a game that lines up very nicely with an old Adam Koebel line which I’m paraphrasing here “Killing a character is about the least interesting thing I can do to them”. Blades is very rarely going to kill a character, this is the anti-CoS. Once the first session gets rolling, the characters are more or less taking their first steps into what will be their inevitable downward spiral. What piles up, rather than “Ooops, bad luck on that death save, looks like I killed another PC, roll up your next”, are fictional complications, traumas, and just overall ways that the characters become more beaten down, unstable, etc until they simply cannot handle the Scoundrel life and retire. Sometimes before they become too messed up to exist in the world sometimes… not so much.

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#172

[quote=“Jabba_the_space_gangster, post:168, topic:1087, full:true”]

Yeah. As somebody who has been on the opposite end of this, and had over half of my Stress track filled on one astronomically bad Resistance roll, the threat is real.

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#173

Blades In The Dark is the reason why i choose to subscribe on twitch and support the rollplay shows on Patreon.

As a european i even challenge my sleeping schedule to catch the show live. But even if i’m hyped, catching live a show that start at 3:00 or 3:30 am is a difficult commitment.

I also think that as Blade in the dark is such a “players focus / players narative impulse” kind of game that it depends mostly on the wits of the crew. And this migth just be a too delicate balance for the expected result of a Twitch show.
Just as no tabletop rpg session can be state-of-the-art , RollPlay Blades might suffer from this unpredictable balance.

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#174

Yep, I’m east coast and I have work at 6 am. I generally watch the first hour or so of blades then i go to sleep and catch the rest on vods.

#175

Blades seems best when they cut to action and use downtime to explore character relations quickly. Extended exposition episodes are where Blades is the worst. An engaged wiki community would help new watchers get on board.

#176

This is one of my issue with it as a show given the systems the game has you have to watching it all to get why and whats. If you miss a few shows or your a random new twitch viewer turning in on show 11 your lost. It’s a slow burner .

It’s also not a great visual game, everything happens in a fictional space. Swansong we had the gm turn changing the space (map). In CoS combat takes place within maps and grid making positioning matters. In blades it’s all fluff. While its cool that they have a map of the whole city it plays a very little role in anything,

For example RollPlay: Blades - Week 9, Part 4 there is 36-39 min with the map screen it has a small red box… why? If the maps sole purpose is to show location then location should have some impact but nothing in the game takes advantage or uses location (if it does its no expressed to the viewer very well) . So wouldn’t it better to have screen space showing stress trauma or the progression clocks so the audience gets a better understanding of those systems.

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#177

Morning JP,

for me being in the Australian time zone i can’t watch live due to work, so thus I watch the VOD at a later time where I can be involved but not compromising my work. Apart from that I am really enjoying it.

#178

Echoing what many others have said- it’s scheduled too late on a weeknight, and people have to work. Every time I try to catch it live I end up having to go to bed before it’s finished. I do always catch the vods later though.

#179

I think something important to note here is that in the Breakers one-shot, John employed his patented style of DMing there just as much as he Does in Blades. However, in Breakers you had Adam especially but to a lesser extent all the cast playing these energetic, over-the-top, very active and moving characters.

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#180

Thursday nights are basically a death sentence for a streaming rpg show right now. Blades doesn’t have the legs to stand up against Critical Role. If viewership numbers are bad now, they would only get worse in a Thursday evening time slot.

#181

Yeah, I can 100% get your points. It’s a very different show/game from CoS, for example, where the focus is so much more on tactical map combat. Much less visual. Which, personally, is a thing I like about it, but I completely understand that being more than one step removed from the D&D setup it was always running the risk of being a niche show. It’s like, and this is just an off-the-cuff comparison and not a positive/negative value judgement in the slightest; many of the “standard” Rollplay etc shows are like, say, Cheers, and Rollplay:Blades is like Twin Peaks. There is that element where you’re either going to be drawn to digging in below the surface, or you’re not and you just may never be drawn in. I love that within even the current Rollplay lineup there is enough variety of shows that there should be something for everybody, I just really hope that the cool little quirky show I like finds its audience. :slight_smile:

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#182

Blades is by far my favorite show at the moment, but like many others the time just doesn’t work for me. I always watch the VODs and the patreon aftershow, but it airs at a time when I have class in the evening so I won’t ever really be able to catch it live.

#184

I love Blades in the Dark. It’s my go to TTRPG system. It was actually my first time GM’ing too. That being said I’ve only seen two episodes of the Roleplay show because of the timing mostly. It ends at a pretty bad time for me, and Tuesday’s are just bad in general. Sunday will probably be much better for YOU in viewership, but not personally for me in timing. It’s just the hours, nothing to do with the show.

It’s worth noting I’m east coast NA.

#185

That reminds me, that’s the other thing that irks me on the system, even though its a cool original mechanic. Having X dice to roll to hit a target range, either 4+ in controlled, 5-6 risky/desperate, seems (and pardon me my math sucks) to be an easier difficulty roll than other games’ difficulty-ratings or AC/Saves
Anyone have the “Math” on this System?

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#186

As with most, the time is difficult to work around as it’s a 2 am start, but I am really enjoying the show and the different experience John brings as a GM. The cast is great and works really well together so that is another big positive. The game system is great and lends itself in pushing characters into trying more dangerous and extreme opportunities which I enjoy as a narrative.

Only thing I would say that I feel is missing is the mechanical feeling of danger for the characters. I know the desperate roll mechanic is how the blades system inters this, but it is a very different way of showing threat in a situation. One more striking example is where there is a situation in week 10 in most other RPGs there would be more dire consequences to a character, but in this system the penalty seemed much less and fitted very awkwardly into the narrative to bend to the game mechanics.

However, I do really enjoy the show, the cast, the GM and wish it to continue and the reason for me not catching the live shows would be the timing of it.

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#187

My disconnect from Blades came from a build up of factors.

  1. The scheduled time is difficult for me because it’s so late in the evening. However, I watched the first 2 shows live, so that wasn’t the fatal blow for me.

  2. Second episode, the vice of Geoff’s character turned me off. I’m burned out on graphic dark characters and since that seemed to be a potentially core part of exploring his character, I didn’t necessarily want to watch since I didn’t know how dark things would get. I tried asking how much it would come up and got a “Don’t know, maybe every downtime” response, which made it hard to judge if I’d be common enough to interfere or not with my enjoyment, which demotivated me from watching.

  3. There’s something about John’s GM style that doesn’t work for me. I super admire him as a game designer, but I had a similar problem with the other Blades game he GMs. I dislike writing this because I’ve struggled to pin down what about the style doesn’t work for me, so it’s not helpful criticism because I can’t say what would need to improve to rope me back in. I get the feeling he might be a fun GM to play with, but his style might not translate as well for games meant to be watched?

When I think about the Breakers one-shot, I remember a) the player characters, and b) the map/graphic John designed…but next to nothing about his voice/energy in the game. It might be the difference between someone who GMs a lot and someone who is used to casting/advertising/public speaking, the entertainment X factor?

  1. Nebula Jazz. When I have limited time to keep up with a show, Nebula Jazz is at the top of my list. I love how unpredictable, goofy, and fun the show is.

I think for me it’s the combination of these factors that stopped me from watching Blades after episode 3.

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#188

The time of the show isn’t great for me but even still I’ve always watched Vods when that happends

Real issue for me like some others have said is a sense of danger both from RP standpoint and the mechanics of the game. The guys and gal do a great job Rping but there is never any conflict that is serious I feel. Other Roleplay shows have had this and it adds somethings to it. Also the sense of omg Total party kill whats going to happen can they pull it off? I aint going to jail!!!

Blades just doesn’t have that for me I get that the game is designed sorta that way to make it so the party is a team of pros and this is how they handle business but i mean after awhile its like watching oceans 11 for the 3rd or 4rth movie. Like yea its entertaining but I’m not going out of my way to change my schedule so I can watch it or give up playing a video game/ watching something else. So I dont commit to the show and never watch any of it even when I do have time since I’ll just be lost to the story and what the hells going on.

I love the cast I do they are great and so is the DM it just loses its luster after awhile.

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#189

I don’t think Blades is ever going to pull as many people as a CoS simply because it’s a fiction focused and somber themed show. I enjoy Blades the most of the three Rollplay shows but it has a few things holding it back from popular acceptance.

Most new viewers are likely going into the show with either no rpg experience or having only played DnD. Blades, as a game focused around rp, doesn’t give a lot hooks from classical gaming (hp bars, easy to understand win/fail conditions, long term single objective story arcs). I think this means Blades has a larger barrier of entry for new viewers approaching the show. You pretty much had to nab all the viewers you could within the first couple episodes. To think of it in television terms a person who started The Wire in the middle of the second season wouldn’t have had the time to get into the gang politics with associated character development and would be less inclined to continue watching.

This rollplay emphasis also necessarily slows down the game. The players and GM want to position themselves within the narrative to be optimal mechanically but also setup possible future scenes for character development and that takes time. That pacing is going to split away viewers that don’t have the attention span for this sort of drama.

The drama itself is another roadblock to Blades. This game world is a melancholy one with drug dealers, assassins and thieves being the main protagonists. It doesn’t lend itself well to lightheartedness and that’s always going to be a blow to the viewer count of any show (on twitch or television). I certainly appreciate the change of tone but I think the average twitch viewer (of a potential viewership already whittled down as discussed above) may just see the blood, torture and pain and think this isn’t want he/she wants from a stream.

Again, I greatly enjoy Blades and would like to see it continue but even with a new time slot I don’t think it will ever have as many viewers as the other shows.

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#190

You’re deeply involved.
For most people they’re more likely to get into a regular viewing habit than actively following the schedule. Especially when it is announced that a show won’t be on for weeks. At that point it’s more likely to forget which week the show’d come back on and missing it can lead to not having the time to catch up.

You can see the same with actual TV shows, a several week break will nearly always be a viewer loss. Regularitiy is very important.

Also I’m guessing having the special on a different day only enforced the impression of irregular shows to any casual viewer.

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