Audio is Catching On

Podcasts, Anchor, using Dropbox to share audio files, streamed recordings of actual online game sessions; the manner in which one can share their gaming activities with those not part of your game seems to be on the rise. 

With copious copies and impressions of any given game session being recorded makes the idea of new audio theater seems so much more possible. Whether or not it is a medium which is passe or unneeded, I am particularly aware of my attraction to radio theater as a child. In fact, whether it was a narration or just a song, hearing something on the radio, especially late at night, had an escapist, imaginative thrill that print or video missed. 

I think it has something to do with "theater of the mind", the ability to fill in blanks while a narrative unfolds creates an interactive experience only, well, a table top role playing game being the other can deliver. I've looked at some of the session reports generated by myself and my players over the last two years from actual play and I wonder how to make the content as interesting to consume as it is to play. Editing and writing it out in prose feels laborious and I'm just not into it. I've tried. But writing good fiction is tough, a slog and for me a chore. 

But making the text into an audio story seems much more interesting. I have satellite radio in my truck and I can listen to classic radio broadcasts from a time before television. While the medium is fine the stories are dated and just kind of suck. With today's online tools it would be real simple to do better, as long as you had a good script. Collaboration would be key, as well as changing narrative voice and focus. If you have ever listened to Firesign Theater you may get the jist of what I am thinking. I just need more time to pursue all this cool stuff. Dam day job. And I love game prep so I'm going to work on some of that right now instead of doing some heavy editing and rewrite. 

Dreams within dreams I suppose. 

[EDIT] Here is one of my players taking a stab at and Audio Session Report. Straight up awesome, give it a listen.

The Vanishing Tower is starting a Podcast!

Jason Hobbs peaked my interest on doing a gaming podcast with his use of the Anchor app. Not only did the app sound real easy to use, the podcast software provided a straight forward method for listener interaction and participation. 

I don't think I have the time to arrange a structured show complete with guests like Jason does on Hobbs & Friends of the OSR but I can blather away while I drive around in my truck like he does for Random Screed, his axillary podcast he has created using Anchor. The "Leave a Message" feature on Anchor is what really made me feel like this would be a worthwhile endeavor. Listeners can leave a message which can easily be added into a future podcast. 

I know I really enjoy listening to gaming podcasts while I work and my day job gives me ample time to burn through many. Hopefully I can add to the available content with some of my experiences with table top role playing and the online tools which have so far made my gaming experience possible.

Ye Olde English Random Name Generator

While Forgive Us has a nifty table for generating random names for your Norwich adventures, with only twenty surnames and first names I started getting some repetitive results as the campaign marches on.  I needed something which would give me many more names. Like thousands!

Fortunately sites like Last Gasp provide the answer with the ability to make your own home-grown random generator of whatever you like!

While this way cool tool does have some built in limitations, Zak S. recommends Text Mechanic web site. It allows you to generate text files of every combination of table entries so you can import this back into your random table generator and avoid its individual table entry limits.

I then googled seventeenth century names to compile a large list of names. This has given me over 22,000 possible male names and just over 10,000 female names.

I'm trying to get the links to work right here in blogger and having some difficulty so bear with me.

Generate an Olde English Woman's Name

Generate an Olde English Man's Name