Category Archives: Videos

#rpgaday2015 day 8: favourite appearance of RPGs in the media

My first thought was to highlight the entire “The Gamers” franchise by Dead Gentlemen and Zombie Orpheus Entertainment. But then I realised I could do better than that, and so I present: Natural One.

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Natural One is something I Kickstarted along with its sister feature Humans & Households. Both are set in the same setting as “The Gamers” (to a degree). In “The Gamers” and the subsequent features, the worlds they explore are always fantasy ones, and Natural One changes this up by doing a cyberpunk adventure in Shadowrun.

It’s a different team behind the scenes, with familiar actors like Scott C Brown and Christian Doyle providing the background link to the overarching series while they bring in a new cast to explore this very different story.

If this serves as the gateway that gets people exploring Dead Gentlemen’s work (including the “The Gamers” franchise, Demon Hunters, Syphilitic Ninja Vampires, and more) then I’ll take that as a job well done.


Funny thing: when this is posted, I’ll actually be in Dundee running No Rest for the Wicked. Because just talking about roleplaying isn’t enough.

[YouTube] TIE Fighter

OtaKing77077 has created an 80s-anime-style short film based on TIE Fighter pilots. Aptly enough, it’s called TIE Fighter. It’s only 7 minutes long, but it’s amazing in terms of detail and the effort that’s gone into it. I could clearly identify everything going on (but I’m a Star Wars geek) and while it had no dialogue (instead having a rock soundtrack) you didn’t need to hear what the characters were saying.

Roughly speaking, an Imperial probe droid discovers a Rebel fleet and an Imperial picket squadron hypers in to crush them. The focus on detail and the abilities of the various ships and fighters involved tells me that either OtaKing has seriously done his research, or is as much of a fan as I am (probably both).

There were two points that stuck out at me during it. The first is that the TIE Bomber pilot featured is female – a state of affairs unlikely in the Imperial Navy under Palpatine; and the second is the unlikely squadron of a TIE Interceptor, TIE Fighter, and TIE Bomber, which only makes sense from the perspective of (a) awesome, and (b) the Fighter and Interceptor running at a lower speed than rated so they can peel off to take on threats and still catch up with the Bomber. So, that second point actually does make some sense, and the first point can go screw itself.

Enjoy the film if you haven’t seen it already.

[YouTube] TomSka

YouTuber TomSka is one of my favourite comedic artists on YouTube. He’s been making sketches for a while[1] and his talent has greatly improved in that time.

He has a solid grasp on professional editing and what makes his sketches pop rather than languish, and I’m not the only one to pick up on his talent – he was recently featured on ComedyCentral.co.uk, and has also done videos for the BBC, Cancer Research UK, and more.

His sketches introduced me to other comedic talent on YouTube including Jack And Dean, Crabstickz, Tim H, and more. As with several other successful YouTubers, collaborations are common, and he’s been involved in few collaborations with what I think of as the RocketJump crowd (Freddie Wong and friends).

If you haven’t seen any of TomSka’s sketches, there’s a few here I’d highly recommend:

Footnotes   [ + ]

1. 7 years or so

Con Man

Want to see Nathan Fillion and Alan Tudyk working together again? On a spaceship? With Nathan as the captain, and Alan as the pilot?

Unfortunately it’s not a Firefly reboot, but the parallels are obvious. Con Man is a web series being written by Alan Tudyk that retells some of the convention experiences he’s experienced over the years since Firefly, centring around Wray Nerely, an actor from a fictional sci-fi show that was cancelled too soon by a network. While his best friend Jack Moore (played by Nathan) has rocketed to fame, Wray hasn’t had anything else of note, and languishes in the convention circuit.

You know what? Alan explains it better. Watch the video.

Have you watched it yet? No? Go watch it!

Watched it? Good. So Alan put together an Indiegogo campaign for his new show idea because he didn’t want to be beholden to network schedules, guests, approvals, and all of that nonsense. He wanted to be able to make his own show the way he wanted it. So he asked the fans to help out.

He asked for $425,000 – enough for three episodes of the twelve in the first season. At time of writing, he’s at $2,217,875 and rising. That’s fully funded all twelve episodes and more besides. There’s another 22 days left in the campaign, so who knows what else might come out – the next stretch goal will get a comic for the fictional sci-fi show written.

Where am I going with this? Well, if you want to support Alan Tudyk and Nathan Fillion in making something awesome, then go to the Con Man Indiegogo campaign and put in a few dollars (or just enjoy the videos already published).