My favourite RPG Channel that I wish I could share with my players
In 2016, in the Lone Star state of Texas, one awful role-playing game session led a fantasy and horror author to create a video, published on Nov 23, 2016, titled: The Social Contract. A video that explains the social contract that is made when a group of friends get together to play a tabletop role-playing game. The unspoken contract details the responsibilities of the GM to the table. The same contract outlines the responsibilities of players; something that isn’t typically brought up due to the large amount of Tabletop RPG advice videos are geared more towards GMs. The contract is signed before the game is even played. Signed during planning stages.. Though, like all modern terms and conditions, not fully read. The video reminds both sides that gaming is a group effort where everyone has to do their part and be prepared to show up to have a fun time. The fantasy and horror author, Seth Skorkowsky, put out the video to help others. Now after years of producing (at time of writing) and a total of 332 videos later, he is still creating videos to help GMs and players in the tabletop hobby
Seth Skorkowsky found his niche in the games he enjoys and the stories he likes to tell. His main draw is reviewing adventures, going through the adventures and his experience running them successfully. Throughout his spoiler heavy videos, he gives spots of advice regarding mechanics or criticisms of a plot hole and how to fix it. Near the end, he typically says what could be changed to help heighten the adventure. These adventures range from a light spattering of Advance Dungeons And Dragons adventures to a few from Cyberpunk 2020 and so on. There is a handful of other systems that he has played through his gaming history.
The one he clearly loves and enjoys the most is Call of Cthulhu. At time of writing, he has 67 Call of Cthulhu adventures, 9 campaign diaries (reviewing Chaosium’s pulp campaign of The Two Headed Serpent), and 14 videos giving an overview of the game of Call of Cthulhu itself. Compared to his second most talked about system, Traveller 2e. With only 27 videos on their adventures, a 10 video campaign diary & review for Mongoose’s Secrets of the Ancients, 5 videos for the campaign Mystery of BT-SHT 365, and 12 videos on Traveller’s 2e system itself.
What makes all these videos special is his style. While he may have begun in, as he calls it, “an in-your face style,” he evolved over time. He put his radio/tv/film degree to work, got better at editing, lining his shots, and arguably the most important thing, was the way he created his videos as if he was his own double act. In January of 2017, with a video review of Call of Cthulhu‘s adventure The Haunting, he told the story of an NPC that would help the characters but not take the limelight: a drunk detective played by Seth with his ponytail tucked into a fedora, and using what can generously can be called a 1920s Boston accent. Seth had created Jack the NPC.
Jack soon became a bigger part of his videos, giving a second imaginary person that would give the players perspective in the review. Seth had a vehicle to bounce jokes off of, help alleviate what could be boring stretches of a review, and a medium to use to allow cutaway gags that liven up his reviews. He even has a popular running joke that continues to this day of how similar some adventures force a particular situation onto a specific hero. Jack is malleable as an idea, unbound by games. Each different game could have a different version of Jack. Jack would be wearing a Conan the Barbarian inspired costume for when Seth discusses Modiphius (now out-of-print) Conan: Adventures in an Age Undreamed RPG, one for modern day detective work such as Arc Dream Publishing’s Delta Green or the contemporary horror of Kult: Divinity Lost.
Over time, he created more characters to help him talk about more tabletop roleplaying game-related subjects. He created the imaginary players of Todd, Mike, Dweebles, and Kevin. When he delves into videos about RPG Philosophy, running RPGs, or playing RPGs, He bounces off the array of characters he created to showcase examples and give colorful commentary. With noticeable quirks and outfits, you forget each is played by the same person.
I wish I could share such an entertaining channel with my friends and players, but it’s difficult. When it comes to his more memorable videos, they are spoiler filled adventures. When It comes to the RPG Philosophy videos, the ones I want to send are ones about great player traits or mindsets. Sending to one person feels like calling them out, telling them they are not as great at the table as they could be. Sending to a chat filled with friends and players still has a similar, albeit a less impactful, effect.
When it comes to Seth’s channel it poses a familiar question one experiences when developing an RPG: who is the intended audience? Do you market towards the players with new feats, spells classes, in doing so potentially overwhelming the GM with new additions that they may not allow? Or targeting the smaller market of GMs that take the reins and explore new worlds and adventures?
Who can I share the channel with? Well the answer is another GM. Seth contains countless GM advice tips that, while I do agree with many but not all, give a different and thoughtful viewpoint on topics. Such was the case with his video on Session 0, metagaming, and power gamers. There are still several videos I can share with players to excite them, such as the idea of themed campaigns or any from his Playing RPGs playlist.
To answer: who would enjoy the channel the most?
The forever GM that is not in my game and that doesn’t plan to be. The GM who would enjoy the Call of Cthulhu introduction and seeing the variety of stories that can be told within. The GM that can get excited about systems, and wants to improve their craft. A game-master that I do not know yet, but hope finds Seth Skorkowsky through this post.
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