The history of actual play as entertainment.

[Reynard]

I am very curious about the history of actual play of TTRPGs as a form of spectator entertainment. I think we all know about CR starting as a Pathfinder game and then moving online with 5E, but they were hardly the first.

Who was the first? What was the first live play podcast? Were people live playing at cons as entertainment before that? What games, if any, besides D&D have a history of actual play? When did live streaming overtake recorded play?

I honestly don't know a lot about the history of actual play and am hoping some of you folks do. What was the first time you discovered actual play? When? What game?

Thanks.

 

[Emberashh]

I know there were live and lets plays going back into the 4e era at least, though I wouldn't know what came first.

As for me, I got into the whole watching online bit by getting sucked in by Critical Role. Having just that many hours of longform and consistently interesting content was great for someone that basically exhausted Youtube for things to watch.

But I didn't get into RPGs that way; I had actually started by overhearing and then watching a group that liked to play in the college studen union practically every day. Eventually they started fresh so I joined and I've been in ever since.

 

[overgeeked]

Critical Role started as a 4E one shot for Liam's birthday. They switched to Pathfinder 1E when they started doing a campaign. Then to 5E just before they started streaming.

Acquisitions Incorporated was first on the scene, as far as I know.

Most of my D&D group was watching CR and trying to get me to watch. I resisted until they did their Call of Cthulhu one shot. I was hooked after that.

 

[Reynard]

Critical Role started as a 4E one shot for Liam's birthday. They switched to Pathfinder 1E when they started doing a campaign. Then to 5E just before they started streaming.

Acquisitions Incorporated was first on the scene, as far as I know.

Most of my D&D group was watching CR and trying to get me to watch. I resisted until they did their Call of Cthulhu one shot. I was hooked after that.

I assume you mean for live plays, not actual play in general. Or is AI that old?

 

[Desdichado]

The Story Hour forums here predated any streamed actual play, but filled a similar role. And I'm sure that there were blogs and Usenet posts that did the same thing from nearly the inception of the internet. Prior to that, I think you'd be hard-pressed to find anything that had wide distribution.

 

[BigJackBrass]

Who was the first? What was the first live play podcast?

The first actual play podcast was from members of the Bradford University gaming society, recorded and put online by Paul Maclean (circa 2005, I think, but I'd have to check for the exact details 2003, in fact! That's before podcast was even a word): I believe that RPGMP3.com is still going. Paul later recorded loads of actual plays for his Yog-Sothoth.com site, mainly Call of Cthulhu.

My own Whartson Hall group only started putting our games out in early 2007, so we're very much the junior party

Edit: Slightly earlier than I thought! There's a piece on the origin of it on RPGMP3.

 

[Reynard]

The first actual play podcast was from members of the Bradford University gaming society, recorded and put online by Paul Maclean (circa 2005, I think, but I'd have to check for the exact details): I believe that RPGMP3.com is still going. Paul later recorded loads of actual plays for his Yog-Sothoth.com site, initially Call of Cthulhu.

That is an interesting read.

My own Whartson Hall group only started putting our games out in early 2007, so we're very much the junior party

Well, then, pshaw...

 

[Bacon Bits]

Record of Lodoss War started as a series of "replay" serialized novels. Basically, a novelization of a B/X campaign in Japan. It was first serialized in the Japanese Comptiq magazine beginning in 1986. It is basically where all of the Japanese fantasy tropes in gaming and media originated. If TSR had actually translated D&D into Japanese, then D&D would be as dominant as widespread there as it is here. Alas, TSR's infamously poor foresight led them astray once again.

 

[Twiggly the Gnome]

In the early 80's TSR tried to do a sort of actual play like thing as a radio show.

 

[Bacon Bits]

Interesting how the answer is kind of, "Basically, right away."