Even Heroes Bleed is Back on the Air

 

I mean, the Vanishing Tower house game has been going steady. We are live streaming the session. But it has been a year since I downloaded a recorded session and created an edited audio of the session for snappy play back! 13 months actually. Since an edited audio of the session is the only thing I can stomach to listen, I have got myself out of my omnipresent god-like vision which has me aware of everything which is going on in the Capitol City universe. Not good. This is a supers game so the subplots and NPC threads are like a busted can of spaghetti-oos on vinyl, spread out everywhere!

It was not too long into the recording before I was made aware, again, of the sticky points in the game we go around on. In the case of DC Heroes, it is about turn order, initiative, and surprise. Since I have not been editing the audio of live plays on a weekly basis, our last game (two nights ago) got caught up in these same issues again. We had been not holding sessions through the holidays, so on return to the table it was a processes of uncovering our common arguments. Like, I am editing a session from September 22. On the listen through of our in-game rules discussions, I was made aware of how I was fouling-up calculating knockback. This is one example of how I use recorded game sessions to step up my "game". It has been the best way to correct poor decisions I make during play. You hear the misstep, you cringe, and then it falls out of practice. 

Per usual the  playback reminded me on campaign "fact" we all have agreed on and the ones we all seem to have forgotten. For example, my players were arguing about why they could not do shit with the magic house some of the heroes part-live/part-guard at the mystical Avery mansion. I informed them every time they interacted with the magic house there was a character of mystical abilities and/or had occult lore. That was the key, the house is magic, it takes a magic user to know the proper buttons to push to get reactions. They backed down because I dropped my "this discussion is at an end" statement, "Play the tape." Nothing establishes better what everyone actually said and agreed to during a game session then the recorded audio. I also believe it is the fastest way to improve your roleplaying abilities, listen to what you sound like!