The Pleasure Of Actual Play Is Twofold: Theres The Elemental Pleasure Of Being Told A Story, Intertwined

The pleasure of actual play is twofold: there’s the elemental pleasure of being told a story, intertwined with the alchemy of watching that story be created in front of your eyes (or ears). It is about craft—not in the sense of the well-wrought urn, but in the ways that true chance, fueled by dice or teetering Jenga towers or cards or a coin toss, explodes ossified, clichéd narrative structures.

Who Owns Dungeons & Dragons? — Dr Emily Friedman, LA Review of Books

This chimes pretty much exactly with what we found at the Open Space on theatre and RPGs a few years ago!

If you make an audio drama that features a sword and you would be down for doing a feed swap in September.... let me know.

I’m sure she’s fine

i cannot fucking believe brennan lee mulligan said this about a thing i helped write

The Neverafter Baba Yaga mini is the coolest thing I've ever seen, I'm in awe, I'm in love

As this post mentions, I'm eligible for Best Game Master | Indie at the CRIT Awards! If you enjoy my GMing on @merelyroleplayers, I hope you'll consider honouring me with a nomination!

If you're feeling extra generous, my work is also eligible in the Best Supplement or third party content category. To tie in with Merely Roleplayers' Monster of the Week campaign, I've been releasing mysteries for Monster of the Week; these three all came out within the CRIT Awards eligibility period:

Sherrydown Enquirer 3: Tourist Trap https://merelymatt.itch.io/touristtrap

Sherrydown Enquirer 4: Bad Dog https://merelymatt.itch.io/baddog

Sherrydown Enquirer 5: Quarry https://merelymatt.itch.io/quarry

The CRIT Awards: for your consideration

The Creator Recognition in TTRPG (CRIT) Awards are open to nominations until 1 June!

Things released between 1 Jan 2022 and 31 Jan 2023 are eligible. In the case of Merely Roleplayers, that means:

Main House productions: Vigil: Quarry

(Vigil: All Aboard is also on the borderline, the final story act came out on 7 Feb 2023)

Studio productions: Monumental Exit & The Feed (series 1)

(The Lost Andromeda Ward Christmas Special is also on the borderline, it kicked off on 14 December 2021 but extended into the eligibility period)

See our Past Productions page for more about all those productions.

Here's the CRIT Awards nomination form.

It would mean the world to us if you considered nominating Merely Roleplayers in some or all of these categories:

Best TTRPGs, Supplements, APs, and Channels of this year

Best storyline | In a AP: Vigil: Quarry (Merely Roleplayers)

Best Series: Vigil (Merely Roleplayers) https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLCMIHyd_TMSpZ_HMrmThX2HcM_zP2yR5-

Best NPC: Ernie Bering, agent of DoOm (Merely Roleplayers: Vigil)

Best Villain: The Stranger (Merely Roleplayers: Vigil)

Best in their TTRPG Category

Best Game Master | Indie: Matt Boothman

Best Player | Indie: choose your fighter—

Natalie Winter (for either Gwynned in Vigil: All Aboard or Sue Sherpa in Monumental Exit)

Alexander Pankhurst (for Mike Sherpa in Monumental Exit)

Marta Da Silva (for Harper in Vigil: All Aboard)

(also eligible are Ellen Gould and Josh Yard for The Feed, and Helen, Strat, Vikki and Chris Starkey for Vigil: Quarry – but Nat, Alex and Marta are professional actors and a nomination could make a real difference to them!)

Best Podcast: Merely Roleplayers

Best Audio and Sound Design | Podcast: Merely Roleplayers

Artist Categories

Best Instrumental of the year by a musician in TTRPG: Vigil theme by Alexander Pankhurst https://youtu.be/KRsdcFLK0F4?t=104

Enter your nominations in the CRIT Awards form or find out more about the awards

And if you don't fancy nominating us for all these categories, hopefully you'll shower some nomination love on other podcasts in the community who are doing incredible work, like @realmspod, Interstitial AP by @revryebread, @monsterhourpod, @legendlarkpod and @campaignskyjacks. We can't nominate ourselves so we'll be putting all of these luvvies and more forward instead!