Podcast planning?

Games Discussion Ars Magica
1

Hi all,

So, the podcast is coming up on a year old. It's time to have a look at it and see if it's worth the work, and if there might be better ways of doing it.

So, my current constraints:

The podcast costs me about $7 a month. I'm not willing to pay more than that, so the sum total of minutes per month can't be longer than it is. (Approximately 50 minutes). I will make an exception in May, because I have a huge episode I want to send out to celebrate the 50th episode (It will be 58 minutes on its own.). I use Canva and Small pdf, which are free, and Audacity which is free. The audio version is more popular than the transcripts, but audio is terrible for creature stats, and it's better with a script regardless. It's always going to be a single speaker podcast: I know many people want a two-hander: that won't happen.

I can make fewer, bigger episodes, or, conversely, I can make more, smaller ones (Seriously, "plot hook a day" is a format I really thought about. I listen to the Writer's Almanac which is a poem a day presented by Garrison Keillor?) I could also make it a work journal on a bigger project (so I could take the Cornwall covenant we did here a while ago and focus on that, or choose a book to pull apart for plot hooks over the course of a year). At the moment there are two I have going there: some notes on the Sanctuary of Ice supplement, and a monthly post with a monster or location from Lo0rd Dunsany. This lets me use some Librivox, which adds some variety of voice.

So, any feedback is welcome as I think my options through.

It may seem premature I'm planning this far out from May 26, which is the anniversary, but I try to get four weeks ahead on my recording. Tonight I should have recorded the last week of April. I'm scripting the first and second week of May now (I need to stat up a spider god and an elemental made of the hair of a goddess) and the third week is the huge ep that's already done. So: it's actually time for me to seriously consider what's going to happen in June.

Also, if you don't listen, what could it do differently to attract your ears? If you do listen and haven't left a review on iTunes...what could it do differently to get you to give it a rating?

3

The first thing to say is that I really love your work and I have found some fascinating things in the podcasts, so I really hope you keep on doing all you do for the game!

But secondly, like Jetpack, even over a year into a saga, there are still many books in the line that I haven't read - there are still chunks of the Realms of Power and Houses of Hermes books that I haven't got round to. Your podcasts can assume quite a deep familiarity with Ars Magica - no bad thing, but I don't think I'm your target audience. I'll get there eventually!

I have to say, like Jetpack, I prefer reading the transcripts than listening - which means I can scan over sections that don't interest me so much and pay closer attention to those that do. That makes me wonder whether the podcast is the ideal medium for what you are doing. That said, I don't often listen to podcasts, so I don't know the medium well.

You ask what I would like to listen to. Well, you might not consider this as you say its always going to be a single speaker podcast, but what I would really like to listen to is some actual play. Before running my own saga, I have had very limited experience of playing Ars Magica face-to-face (a little more over email). I would love to get a better sense of how people do it. In particular, I would like to see how your troupe or any troupe keeps a game flowing with players staying in character, etc, while also using the ruleset which I confess to still finding mightily complex. It would also be good to hear some role-playing of classic Ars Magica situations which experienced players must have gone through again and again - a tribunal meeting, a council meeting, maybe the visit of a Redcap, a Quaesitorial investigation, initiation into a mystery cult, etc - to get a better sense of the Order of Hermes as a living (sub)culture.

David

4

I listen to the podcasts, only occasionally referring to the transcripts. Actually, it's the only podcast I listen to regularly.

(Incidentally, thanks for dropping the musical introduction. I found it piercing.)

5

Oh, Tim, I'm so sorry: that was a production error. It's back not this week but next, for at least the next...five?...weeks? I'll have a look at it on the new ones I record to see what I can do.

6

Ah, well. I can do what I was doing - headphone off until voice starts, much like ads.

7

I actually like the music!
... and the podcast. I haven't listened to all of them yet, but I am enjoying the deep background and possible story hooks. I also find the podcasts more interesting than the transcripts, although the latter are good for making notes on regarding my own sagas and ideas.

8

I don't have headphones at hand each time I need it and my speaking English understanding is awful. That's why I never heard the podcasts - but I do read the transcripts.

I think it's easier to translate for people who don't have English as native language.