Cymbeline

Unlike the game.

Ok. You're right. The podcasts are perfect and eminently listenable. They need nothing but fawning, back-slapping reviews and I see absolutely no reason why Vin Diesel wouldn't want to join this group.

Mechanically, a really good game and easy to play. Production-wise, the worst since 1e. Released the PH by itself, had to wait for the MM. One published adventure. The rules are just randomly scattered around the PH and it's not clear what is rules and what is flavour text. Nice little rules boxes in the races and classes.....explicitly missing 15% of essential content.

IKR. My bugbear in the early stages was how absurd it was to "kind of" play 4e. Roll up 4e stats and powers (but never use them) and have no challenge in combat whatsoever. Up until the underwater fight with the Duke, there was nothing resembling a combat - all that happened was Sark would say "well, it sounds like you guys get to go first - that's the way I do it, because I'm so cool - whoops, all the bad guys are dead." Before putting them in a fight with a 1000hp boss - but it's ok, I've given you all double damage and directly contradicted everything I said about the golem suits. It's notable that the party doesn't have a cleric/leader. In 4e, that's usually a death sentence. Not in this game - because it's been mechanically nerfed to the extent that the characters are never in danger except from auto-kill situations imposed on them by the DM being a tool.

I just don't buy that what it's about though. It's a bunch of people sitting around being crude (not saying that's necessarily a bad thing). This is surely about the D&D game? Otherwise, they wouldn't have people sending them dice and advice on gameplay? If the point of the podcast is that the group is inherently funny in the situation they're in (sitting around a table in a studio) then I have to say it fails even harder. I'm up to #46, I think. My take on it is that I really like the campaign that has been created and is played. It's a bit weird - but it's interesting. What I find incomprehensible is how any of them are having any fun at all. Sark is running a game in the worst possible way - everything that RPGs have moved away from in the last 30 years are the things that he seems to concentrate on. Every possible dick DM move that anyone has ever suffered, he seems to pull out, yet has no real problem with having snipes at other people who have done similar things. They bitch and whine about 4e continuously, yet no-one ever bothered to actually read any of the rules. So why the hell did they start doing it? They're proper dragonsfoot-type grognards - thinking the old ways are the best, and that their way rules....so why start a campaign using a ruleset that none of them have the slightest idea how to play, and then cry like babies about it? There's no challenge for the group - they almost never roll initiative - but just go through the motions of the party doing everything they want to, and then if the bad guys survive, they get an unmodified chance back to do a hit on the characters. On top of that, he's turned one character into Iron Man with powers out of all balance with the rest of the game, another into a fire-breathing dragon, and another into an astrophysicist with a wand of infinite lightning. Meanwhile, Sarah and Brian get...nothing except a ride in an interstellar Apache gunship. Just listened to the episode where Brian's character (Amarth?) gets killed. It took them a whole episode to describe climbing from one ledge to another, and the DM just threw in some random rolls for no reason that advanced the game in the slightest. Brian fails, and then the DM spends the next 30 minutes laughing to himself and trying desperately to give the player roll after roll of save or die - all of which are fails. The character dies for no reason which advances the story or game. This, not long after the party had started a fight with 50 collectors, which the DM nerfs to death, and gives them a free "out" so that they get non-rolled cover in an elevator and avoid big damage. So - the DM protects them in actual story situations where they have control over play - and then kills them in non-story trivial situations like climbing a rope. From a game point of view, he's sending people out of the room for big chunks of sessions - stupid stuff which most people gave up on in the 1980s. Out of the dozen times he's done it, only once (when Mildred was possessed) did it have any impact on the game. Not to mention all the BS like "I won't tell you what your items do - it's more fun for you to find out....never" Apart from the fact that they are friends - I don't see where the enjoyment is for any of them. He KO's Sarah's character and basically has her turn up to a studio for two weeks to play an unconscious character. They always ask for reviews - well here it is: BP&F: I don't know where you are in the game atm, but the one you played for two years sucked. You want to know why Vin Diesel won't play your game? Because he probably doesn't want to listen to rape jokes for an hour during which you roll dice 30 times to walk down a corridor whilst Sark umms and ahhs and utterly fails to get his point across. Other podcasts have thousands of listeners (and the associated funding and advertising and spin off benefits) because their games are enjoyable to listen to rather than a mess. Countless people play these games, and so many of them have moved away from all these dumb cliches and tropes which you guys are playing out week after week. I'm assuming you have a new DM now. Play a game that's interesting and enjoyable and engages and challenges the players - the humour and funniness of your group will obviously play out in that much more strongly and listeners will be more engaged and care more. You make the effort to turn up and play every week - so why not make the negligible effort to learn how to play the current 5e D&D? That will engage people and have them contributing and keep things current. Playing these 30 year old grognard games, which are essentially dead systems doesn't do anything for anyone except a small audience of other greybeards.

Hi, I've started listening recently, and done some catching up over a few weeks so that I'm currently up to about #27. I started listening after reading overwhelmingly favourable reviews online. I have to say that after about 3 episodes - I was exceptionally disappointed. I'm carrying on as I'm convinced that there must be a change or improvement otherwise why would people rate Nerdpoker so highly? I want to know - frankly - if it gets better? Apologies if this makes no sense as I'm way behind the curve - but I really like three of the players - Blaine, Gerry and Sarah seem to put a lot of effort in. Ken seems pretty anonymous and Brian is just your typical "I want to kill things" guy sitting there belching and sweating. The original DM, Sark seems to have some really great ideas, but the gameplay is just a mess to the extent that I can't understand that even in a super stylised homebrew game - how anyone is actually enjoying themselves. It just seems old school homebrew to the point of absurdity. This may have changed since - but I can't understand why they are even playing 4e. They clearly have no clue how to do so or how the game works - and are playing it to its absolute weaknesses - why continue? Also seem to be doing this super old school thing of sending people out of the room for reasons which don't even help the story. Had a few save or dies, some crazy retconning and the thing I find the most strange is the rolling on player vs player interactions.

Whether eating is part of an actual D&D game is irrelevant - this is a podcast of a D&D game. Eating whilst broadcasting makes it difficult to listen to and generally pisses people off. There's nothing special about D&D that you should be able to completely disregard your audience. You wouldn't eat or drink whilst making any other kind of podcast. Additionally, what eating/drinking sounds like in real life is completely different from the amplified sound of it on an audio recording.

I say it's completely unprofessional. The stuff like the belching is in a sense part of the schtick, so I don't necessarily have a problem with that - but eating or drinking whilst doing a podcast - especially when some of the players are professional entertainers isn't right.