I'm not sure why I've not posted here about this yet, but as I was writing a blog post about it over on my profile I realized I should probably mention it on the forum, too.
Last year when the PHB2 was released, I did a series of three comedic audio sketches for War Pig Radio that talked about some of the new races and classes that were coming out. Since then they've pretty much just been sitting gathering dust in the feed for my RPG podcast (The Great Debate!).
So if you'd be interested in hearing them, here they are!
www.rpgdebate.com/index.php?post_categor...
-Sarena
The Chime/Xylophone/whatever that was needs to go. It's grating. If you want to do some sort of intro, take a page from the Dead Alewives.
At this point, someone owes me the last fifteen minutes of my life back. This sort of thing doesn't make me want to buy the PHB2... Rather the opposite. I almost want to ban all of it's content, if this is how it's to be used.
-Sarena
But seriously, thanks everyone for your comments.
Admittedly, I did this almost a year ago, back when I was just starting to figure out how to do audio, so I agree that the timing is off. Most notably, there need to be pauses but there really aren't any to speak of.
As for the bells: this was also the result of an early foray into the wonderful world of scouring royalty-free music from the web. These days I've learned a few more tricks to finding appropriate pod-safe music, but back then I pretty much had to settle for whatever I found (that plus I didn't have much time to assemble the pieces in the first place). Maybe it's just a sadomasochistic streak in me, but I'll admit that I actually kind of like the bells.
The writing process was interesting in that I pretty much had one day to write and record each of the three spots. The big thing I was trying to do was to keep everything in context -- essentially get class and race information across in what I hoped was an amusing way without breaking the 4th wall. I've noticed that most of the RPG-related comedy I've come across (including my own regular podcast, which I do a bit differently) relies heavily on breaking the 4th wall, largely with jokes referring to the knowledge that it's a game -- essentially playing on the juxtaposition of our reality and the game world's reality (by and large involving the repurcussions of game world CHARACTERS exhibiting behavior characteristic of PLAYERS). I'm guessing that's the kind of thing a number of folks have come to expect when someone mentions "RPG comedy." I chose not to do that with these sketches, though, because I wanted to keep everything within the context of the game world. They don't really have much in the way of jokes or punchlines because it's not meant to be that kind of comedy. At best I was able to work in a few references to outside things but that was about it, since what I was aiming for was satire. In doing so, I quite possibly shot myself in the foot, since not so many people get satire.
Still, I'm not going to sit here and pretend that I did a fabulous job of it -- if I genuinely screwed it up, then I'll happily admit to it and try again with something different. After all, if I have to explain WHY something is supposed to be funny then that typically means it's time to go back to the drawing board. If I end up doing more of these for the PHB3 release then I may try to figure out a different way of doing them. I'm also hoping that in that instance the experience I've picked up since I produced these three sketches will stand me in good stead.
Thanks again, folks. I appreciate it!
-Sarena