The Escapist Film Festival 2010: Smashing Dice

[Nemal]

Smashing Dice

How does one start a game? How do you manage problem players? How is it that experienced game-masters do so well with so little effort? Join us, roll some dice, and let's find out!

Watch Video

 

[Moon_Called]

Ah, I see. So this is going to be a series of animated tips for dungeon masters? That's pretty cool. =D
Loving your accents, too. Forgive me for sounding classless if I get the wrong region, but are you Russian or maybe Turkish?

I really like the idea, and it's well-presented. My only complaint is the background noise, which was distracting. Try getting better audio equipment. Also, a lot of people on this site may be put off by the anime style of your avatars. Personally, I like them, but that's just a branding choice.

Great work, guys, and good luck. =3

 

[Nemal]

Haha, yeah. We had severe trouble with the audio equipment- not only did we not have decent microphones (only gamer headsets), neither of us had experience with audio editing, and during the audio recording it started raining.

Filtering out the noise gave it a strange hum/reverb at times. Still, it was a fun project to work on, and I learned lots about animation and such. Since this is our first video for anything ever, we're quite pleased with it despite the sound issues.

As to "tips for dungeon masters", it's supposed to be a bit more generic than that. When we were tossing the script around, we had like a billion ideas of subjects to talk about, but five minutes isn't all that long, so it couldn't be too complex... and as a first video, the ideas couldn't be too advanced or the newer roleplayers would miss it... and they couldn't be too basic or the advanced roleplayers would find it obvious/boring.

The resulting script is a compromise, and I think it shows.

Either way, many thanks for your feedback! We'll see how well we do. This years contestants are way better than last years, I think. ^^


As to the anime style?
Hey, what can I say. It's my first time drawing anything, too. It was fun discovering that we could finish the video despite only noticing the contest two weeks before deadline, and having absolutely no art, animation, audio recording or video rendering experience. XD

 

[FrossetMareritt]

So far this is the only video that I didn't skip through to speed the video along, or jump to the comments less than halfway through to see it get ripped to shreds. That being said, I not only sat through your entire video, but I liked it as well. In fact you made me chuckle at a couple points.

It's got a great premise, teach would-be Storytellers/DMs/GMs the howtos and philosophies to successfully run a pen-&-paper game. I especially like how in this video you broke it down into a 'cut the fat' way of starting the game. Most first timers think that their god-like status means they must go from setting up the player's starting civilization and it's history, to accurately getting the astral sizes and weights correct so the planet doesn't tidally lock itself to the sun - of course that might be an interesting fantasy setting.

I do have a question though: How will you proceed when you've run through all the 'Storytelling 101' basics and advanced topics?

My only gripe is with fixing the audio so that you don't sound like you're in a box. But that's only a gripe, because halfway through I had kinda stopped noticing it.

I want to leave on a positive note: Great job, keep it up 'cause I'm rooting for you!


[EDIT]: I forgot something I meant to say earlier. I like the animation style. Most people don't have easy/free access to the high-tech equipment and the wherewithal to film such a venture to not make it look like it was filmed in their dirty bedroom with a camera phone. This also allows you to have more control over the video. Like moving to a different setting in order to bring a point home to the viewer. Or how you can complete the animation at different times of the day or even go back and edit something and the viewer won't ever know - which I'm sure happened several times making this video.

I could go on about how I thought the animation fits the focus of the series (hopefully) and the benefits of using it. I will say that if I were watching two guys at a table trying to act this out, I would have stopped the video long before the end.

 

[Nemal]

So far this is the only video that I didn't skip through to speed the video along, or jump to the comments less than halfway through to see it get ripped to shreds. That being said, I not only sat through your entire video, but I liked it as well. In fact you made me chuckle at a couple points.

Thank you! That's really high praise. We're glad you liked it.

It's got a great premise, teach would-be Storytellers/DMs/GMs the howtos and philosophies to successfully run a pen-&-paper game. I especially like how in this video you broke it down into a 'cut the fat' way of starting the game. Most first timers think that their god-like status means they must go from setting up the player's starting civilization and it's history, to accurately getting the astral sizes and weights correct so the planet doesn't tidally lock itself to the sun - of course that might be an interesting fantasy setting.

Yeah. This has been a problem I've seen a lot of newbies get discouraged by.
In my mind, it's kind of like watching a Bicycle stunt exhibition and deciding that you can't ride a bicycle because you couldn't do all the training it would take to do something like that.

Start small, learn to walk before you run, etc.

I do have a question though: How will you proceed when you've run through all the 'Storytelling 101' basics and advanced topics?

Well... there's a bunch of other things I wanted to talk about.
For example, reviewing roleplaying systems (D&D, world of darkness, etc) to point out their strengths and weaknesses and which kind of game will be a better fit to which kind of player, or getting down to actual game-making and world-building techniques. There's a lot of material there.

My only gripe is with fixing the audio so that you don't sound like you're in a box. But that's only a gripe, because halfway through I had kinda stopped noticing it.

Yeah. Like I said- audio proved to be a way bigger issue than we expected and we really need to learn how to do it better.

I want to leave on a positive note: Great job, keep it up 'cause I'm rooting for you!

Hehe, thank you.
Being on page 4 is slightly discouraging, but then again, the project was huge fun.

[EDIT]: I forgot something I meant to say earlier. I like the animation style. Most people don't have easy/free access to the high-tech equipment and the wherewithal to film such a venture to not make it look like it was filmed in their dirty bedroom with a camera phone. This also allows you to have more control over the video. Like moving to a different setting in order to bring a point home to the viewer. Or how you can complete the animation at different times of the day or even go back and edit something and the viewer won't ever know - which I'm sure happened several times making this video.

Damned right. XD
I think it also shows in the video that we had to cut a ton of stuff- like, the 5:00 length mark. It's hard to balance the dialog with the content, because it's not a lecture, but it's not really humor either.

The video was supposed to have two backgrounds (the first scene was supposed to be elsewhere in the house), but we just ran out of time to draw the art! The fox should've moved some more throughout the video, but... well. Again, time constraints.

I could go on about how I thought the animation fits the focus of the series (hopefully) and the benefits of using it. I will say that if I were watching two guys at a table trying to act this out, I would have stopped the video long before the end.

Thank you. I like the idea of using cutesy drawings like this. They're really very flexible, fun to draw, and they kind of look like roleplayers, although I couldn't say why.


Thanks for the comments! Very much appreciated.

 

[FrossetMareritt]

Hehe, thank you.
Being on page 4 is slightly discouraging, but then again, the project was huge fun.

Page 4? You're on the front page to me. In fact you're on the second line from the top all the way to the right.

 

[Nemal]

Hehe, thank you.
Being on page 4 is slightly discouraging, but then again, the project was huge fun.

Page 4? You're on the front page to me. In fact you're on the second line from the top all the way to the right.

Huh. Where are you watching the videos from? I saw 'em from the banner link- and the "first cut" videos were on the first page and so on.

 

[FrossetMareritt]

Huh. Where are you watching the videos from? I saw 'em from the banner link- and the "first cut" videos were on the first page and so on.

I just clicked on The Escapist Film Festival 2010 link: http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/the-escapist-film-festival-2010

That's the only way I know how to get to it.