I am a bit old, and never got why so many people watch “actual play”. I’ve done it once or twice to get the mechanic of a game, but found the experience more technical/boring than fun.
I get having a guest or candidate player watching an in person to see how rpg work, or whether they click with the group, but somehow watching video of strangers playing RPG doesn’t sounds fun to me. But I might miss something considering how popular these actual plays are
- Good group dynamics
- A DM/GM who strives for verisimilitude (particularly at the expense of overdone tropes)
- Players who exhibit some level of system expertise and are engaged in all pillars of gameplay
- Clear audio and good editing to remove the long silences and crosstalk
- GM does creative things in terms of how they run their game that I feel like I can learn from
I’m mostly in the same boat as you. I have tried several times to get into Critical Role since everyone raves about it, plus a few others. It’s not for me. I suppose it’s because I don’t have any emotional connection with the actual play where I would have that investment with my own game. I will say that I did enjoy Dungeons & Daddies though, but that show is more like listening to a comedy podcast about fantasy rather than an actual play.
It’s story time with dice, so the story tellers don’t know what’s going to happen next, so there are meaningful moments of suspense.
Critical Roll is probably actually a bad example here, because it’s produced and designed as a TV show. Podcasts with reasonably sized episodes can make for good tales that I can listen to in the car or while at the gym.
I find I really need to get over the hump into it feeling like a parasocial relationship, which is kinda a shame. The only time I’ve enjoyed actual plays is when I’ve seen people who I was already fond of from other internet content play, and on top of that, never in a gimmicky setting like a promotion one-shot.
Basically it’s not for the actual play, it’s for living through their friendship, then occasionally the drama of the game spills forth and gives it an extra kick.
I enjoyed watching Harmonquest, the episodes of which have parts video of the table and parts animated story. It’s a comedy show, for the most part, which genre appeals to me. Past, that, I enjoy a good actual play podcast, sans video, like BomBARDed or NaDDPod, both of which are also comedic stories.
Just watching a group play a game can indeed be boring. But if that game is just a format for the genre of entertainment you already enjoy, that’s the appeal.