The Giant Beastcast: Episode 31

Haha - that was great. Also, I hadn't heard of Fiasco before this episode.

Ended up convincing my friends to play the same playset yesterday and it was amazing!

Thanks gang - and especially Austin for facilitating the game.

yeah, alex and vinny had the funniest bits but Jeff had some good role-playing in there too. Also did a good job of getting his random cab driver character involved in the plot, especially for someone who apparently never plays tabletop RPGs.

Really enjoyed that one! Thanks, happy holidays!

Sorry, but no thanks. If i want to listen to this sort of thing I'm sure there is a dedicated podcast for it but not here please.

I'm happy to see the majority of comments here are positive. I love that they decided to do something special and different for a Christmas episode.

I hope GBEast spins this out into some sort of semi-regular feature because they killed it. I don't think the west coast really has the right crew for any sort of roleplaying (Dave and Vinny carried the first unplugged).

It was nice to hear from Pat Baer too, I know about 404ing it but has he actually been on any GB content outside of maybe an E3 podcast?

@tastypotato: Same. Even 10 minutes in I was just... Zoning out. Lots of people loved it I guess, but for my tastes it just doesn't translate well to a podcast. Wouldn't mind it becoming a feature for those interested, but I look forward to the regular Beastcast "games discussion" format returning next week!

Awesome episode guys! Love when you guys role play :)

@eurobum: or here's a crazy idea: a bunch of people actually enjoyed it.

That was really cool! I'd love for more of this to appear as premium content or something!

do more of this game! this was fantastic!! merry christmas to us!!!

Love it.

Hey sounds great!

That's fine it not being your thing. But, I don't get how there is a "please don't let this be a regular replacement for the normal beastcast" group. Do you and others actually believe for a second that this would replace the "normal" beastcast? It was pretty obvious this was just a holiday special because they have time off, but still want to put something out for their normal friday slot.

Have fun with it. The "normal" beastcast will be back in January.

This was a great one off thing. Hopefully they don't try and make lightning strike twice and wear it out.

What the hell happened back there.

Please make a separate podcast where all future VR talk is replaced by random improv.

Wow, that was amazing!! So fun and funny and different. Please do more stuff like this!

I have listened to a LOT of podcasts in my day, and this is, easily, one of the best ever.

I loved Vinny's balls-to-the-wall attitude, I loved Alex's willingness to just GO with it, no matter what IT was, I loved Pat's grounding of it all and I loved Jeff's willingness to get sucked in despite it being his first tabletop game.

Most of all, though, I LOVED Austin's ability to, against all odds, actually herd cats. I would PAY for a weekly or monthly podcast of this game with this cast.

No complaints with them trying something new but for the sake of genuine feedback, this stuff doesn't hit with me at all. Was cool having something new but I'd really have no interest listening to this sort of thing again. Hopefully I don't sound as bitter as some of the other negative comments unfortunately sound, just wanted to add my vote to the "really not my thing" column. See you all in the new year!

@coverlesstech: Yeah, if you listen early on you can hear me try to insist on that tighter rule restriction, but I could tell that it was slowing up the flow of things (and I'd already spent 15 straight minutes setting up rules and stuff!) I made a quick judgment call to play fast and loose and I think it came out mostly okay! (And yeah, if we were playing in person I think things would've been smoother!)

@austin_walkerCan we get a novelization of this? Aka can someone write up all the scenes with added description or what ever else is needed to make it work as a story? I mean it honestly sounds like I would watch this movie. I may try to do it myself but thought I would see if anyone else with more time than me was interested. This was really interesting and I wonder if anyone ever does use this to help write movies ... and what the IP laws would have to say if they did.

@zaldar: Thankfully they have the author of the 5 star amazon reviewed book, "Air Force Gator" on staff. Aka Dan Ryckert.

Really fun to listen to during this bleak night shift I just got through. Thanks for keeping my spirits up.

uhhhh I think you answered your own question in this post?

Awesome. Please do more! Austin is such a great addition to the staff. GBeast is pretty rad these days.

This was a cool little thing but I usually listen to Bombcasts while doing other things like playing certain video games, mowing the lawn, doing chores around the house, etc. and so I kind of zonk out while listening to them, and I feel like this requires a little too much attention and mental involvement that I normally don't give to the Bombcasts to fully enjoy it, lol. It doesn't really work well with me because of the way that I normally consume the podcasts but I still appreciate it and wouldn't be opposed to more experimental things like it in the future, especially in video.

This was incredible. I listened with the wife, and she doesn't normally have interest in the podcast. Would listen to any future roleplaying with her again, no question.

Wooot!

Man what a great idea. A fucked up teleplay for Christmas!

I would watch this in video form but I couldn't keep tabs on things enough to listen to this while at work.

I finally got around to listening to this. It's so good. I really hope they do more stuff like this.

Man, this was amazing.

I would absolutely be in for more of this on a semi-regular basis. My experience with tabletop RPGs has mostly been the rules and dice heavy ones, so I was absolutely fascinated by the improv style of Fiasco.

Don't really understand the game part, but this was great

@duxa: Merry Frickin Christmas

This is some great improv scenes. You guys should take classes, I bet you would have a ton of fun.

I really hope somebody edits the audio together into a cohesive story.

Where the hell is all the fan art dammit?

Really enjoyed the podcast – all the GBE crew did great and brought a great & different energy. Kudos to Austin for bringing this approach & ideas to GB. Hopefully there can be more random experiments and games like this in the future! I appreciate the difficulty facilitating everything via Skype, especially with some relative RPG novices, but for future episodes it would be helpful to give a few more of the game’s rules. Even for Fiasco, a rules-lite game, I was distracted trying to figure out how the die count and pips worked for the tilt and end results. Probably a result of to much D&D in my misspent youth....

Fiasco - Last Christmas in LaGuardia

For those having trouble keeping all this glorious nonsense straight please find a summary below of the player characters, professional relationships and Narrative elements that were assigned or improvised in the opening minutes of the game (so minor eary-game spoilers follow).

Vinny as Lincoln Ghost - Smuggler with Hard & brother to Chris - In possession of 200lbs of uncut cocaine.

Alex as Hard Markinson - Smuggler with Lincoln & informant for Cody - Has to inform on Lincoln and get out of the damn airport.

Austin as Cody America - US Marshall shadowing Hard & perceived business rival of Louie - Wants to collect evidence on Lincoln and escape the airport.

Jeff as Louie Gridlock - Radio loving taxi driver rival of Cody & ex-soldier commanding officer over Chris - Should confront the truth with Chris.

Pat as Chris Ghost - Lonely ex-soldier who served under Louie & brother of Lincoln - Grew up in the Hamptons with Lincoln.

Loved the episode! It was a nice change of pace.

This was really great, hope to see/hear more like it!

If you guys liked this as much as I did I highly suggest you all check out The Adventure Zone, it's a table top D&D podcast like this but with the McElroy brothers and their dad. It's fucking incredible

This was amazing; someone needs to animate it.

In my mind all of the characters had their own look, except for Hard. He just straight up looked like Alex.

It's magic people!

New rule: Austin gets to play tabletop RPGs as much as he wants

Glad I'm not the only one,

This is my exact experience listening to this episode.

Advice for episodes similar in nature to this one in the future (personally hope it won't be too common), leave a some sort of clearer note in the description about what is going on.