Category Archives: Web series

#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.

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).