Actual play
Actual play, also called live play,[1] is a genre of podcast or web show in which people play tabletop role-playing games (TTRPGs) for an audience.[2][3] Actual play often encompasses in-character interactions between players, storytelling from the gamemaster, and out-of-character engagements such as dice rolls and discussion of game mechanics.[3] The genre emerged in the early 2000s[4] and became more popular throughout the decade,[2] particularly with the 2015 debut of Critical Role, an actual play webseries featuring professional voice actors.[5]
"Live play" redirects here. Not to be confused with Live action role-playing games.History[edit]
According to Evan Torner writing in Watch Us Roll, actual play is rooted in phenomena including magazine "play reports" of wargames and internet forums dedicated to role-playing games.[3] With the emergence of esports, livestreamed gaming, and Let's Plays, actual plays of TTRPGs became a popular podcast and webseries format, and contributed to the resurgence of TTRPGs in the 2010s and 2020s.[3][5]
In 2008, the creators of Penny Arcade partnered with Wizards of the Coast to create a podcast of a few 4th Edition Dungeons & Dragons adventures which led to the creation of the Acquisitions Incorporated.[6][7] After the podcast was well-received, the players began livestreaming games starting in 2010 at the PAX festival.[6]: 108 [8] Acquisitions Incorporated went on to be described by Inverse in 2019 as the "longest-running live play game".[9] Critical Role, a web series in which professional voice actors play Dungeons & Dragons, launched in 2015. Critical Role has been credited by VentureBeat as responsible for making actual play shows "their own genre of entertainment", and has since become one of the most prominent actual play series.[8] Another popular series is The Adventure Zone, a comedic actual play podcast which has featured several TTRPG systems.[2] As of 2021, it received over 6 million monthly downloads, and ranked highly on Apple podcast charts.[10] By 2021, there were hundreds of actual play podcasts.[10] Many web festivals, such as New Jersey, Minnesota, Los Angeles, Baltimore, Cusco, and New Zealand, "now include actual play categories, and many have scholarship programs".[11] Polygon highlighted that "web fest selections are quickly becoming one of the best places to discover the undersung 'ambitious middle' of actual plays — that is, shows that aspire to the same storytelling heights as the most popular troupes, but that lack the resources of time and production budget".[11]
TTRPG publishers have engaged with actual plays by licensing shows based on their products, running their own, incorporating content from actual plays back into source material, and playtesting games in actual play format. L.A. by Night is an actual play licensed by the publisher Paradox Interactive, and based on their role-playing game Vampire: The Masquerade; it premiered on Geek & Sundry in 2018.[12] Rivals of Waterdeep is an official Wizards of the Coast actual play show, based on their Dungeons & Dragons system.[8] Wizards of the Coast has also published collaboration sourcebooks based on actual play shows, such as the Explorer's Guide to Wildemount (2020) based on Critical Role[13] and Acquisitions Incorporated (2019) based on the live play game by the same name.[9]
During the 2023 SAG-AFTRA strike, Charlie Hall of Polygon commented that "actual play, which has grown in popularity since well before the pandemic, has often pulled in Hollywood types to fill seats at the table. But neither SAG-AFTRA nor AMPTP is regularly involved in the productions that Polygon spoke with, and therefore they will not be affected".[14] Justin Carter, for Gizmodo, stated it was tricky as the "fate of an Actual Play show depends on the company behind it, and possibly what platform it's released on" – shows such as Dimension 20 on the streaming service Dropout and Purple Worm! Kill! Kill! on the "upcoming 24-hour Dungeons & Dragons Adventure streaming channel" are impacted by the strike as they "fall under SAG's Electronic Media contract, and are thus shut down".[15] However, other actual plays such as Critical Role and shows on the Glass Cannon Network were not impacted by the strike.[14][15] Christian Hoffer, for ComicBook.com, explained that YouTube and Twitch channels appear to be a "grey area" so "Critical Role and most Actual Play shows that air exclusively on YouTube and Twitch do not appear to impacted by the SAG-AFTRA strike, while productions like Dimension 20 that hire talent and airs on a closed platform (i.e., one that's not open to anyone to post content on) are impacted by the SAG-AFTRA strike".[16] In August 2023, Sam Reich announced that all Dropout shows (including Dimension 20) have resumed production as it was determined that their "New Media Agreement for Non-Dramatic Programming" was actually a non-struck SAG-AFTRA contract.[17][18]