Actual Play recommendations (And possible list)

Hey guys,

So I'm getting to the end of various of my Actual play podcasts and need some more while waiting for more episodes as I listen to them at work so get through quite quickly.

So wondered if there were any people would recommend. Particularly Pathfinder, Shadowrun, Call of Cthulu and World of Darkness but anything really.

I also thought I'm like not the only one, so thought I could curate a list on this post of recommendations, that people could look at if they needed something new? (Unless there's already one somewhere on the forum I missed)

Pathfinder

Find the Path Podcast - Runthrough of Mummy's Mask AP
Glass Cannon Podcast - Runthrough of the Giants layer AP

Vampire the Masquerade
Blood and Syrup - Quite silly and light hearted compared to the usual setting, a group of vampires trying to reclaim Montreal for the camarilla
Stich of Fate - A coterie have to investigate a murder in their territory, and things begin to spiral. ( Warning: Quite Dark)

DnD
Welcome Adventurers - A quite lighthearted actual play that starts in 4e, and eventually becomes 5e

I know you asked for systems other than DnD, but the grandaddy of them all is 5e, Critical Role. They're deep into their second campaign at the moment. They didn't start recording their first campaign until after the game had already begun, so the 2nd might be easier to hop into.

As well, I've really enjoyed Not Another DnD Podcast, as it's got a fair amount of humor thrown in.

Adventure Zone is another lighthearted one, but they play pretty loose with the rules and rolls.

Family Friendly Actual Play podcasts



Damage Guild: 150+ episode backlog this is the first podcast i enjoyed listening to!
website

Make Believe Heroes: Entertaining they change characters every so often but the storyline is linked and so are all the characters in wonderful and surprising ways, they also run some one shots of other games like Monster of the week
website

Sneak Attack: this podcast unfortunately ended the started out with D&D 5e but then switched over to a si-fi adventure don't know in what system and never finished the adventure
website

Titans of All'Terra: the DM is a player in Sneak Attack and another player from sneak attack is in the podcast and they are back up and running to finish thier final season.
website

Dungeons And Dragons And Daughters
Podbean
Block Party Podcast Network

Tales From The Glass Guarded World
Website

Improv Tabletop
Website

I Cast Fireball
Website

theirs a good list of non d&d ones here

They aren't actively releasing anything anymore, but Dice for Brains is the best Star Wars actual play I've heard. Their site is here.

Melting Plot uses the same narrative dice system as Star Wars (Genesys), but their two seasons are set in different worlds. The first takes place in a post-apocalyptic USA, while the second takes place in a Middle Earth where Sauron won. Their gimmick is that the PCs are all randomly chosen from a list of famous fictional characters. It's a great listen, even if Season 2 ended before it could come to any resolution. Their feed is here.

Respect the Crit uses Edge of Empire I think?
apple podcasts link.

I second the recommendation for both Sneak Attack and Titans of All’terra. Particularly Titans. It is family friendly and has an anime vibe to it with a couple of overly cute characters and the inclusion of custom rules that grant each of the players access to their own giant golem/mech. Sneak Attack feels like a pretty classic D&D you have played around the table. They aren’t trying to overdue anything and copy Critical Role. Just a bunch of friends having a good time. I was really sad to see it end.

Hands down my favorite actual play is Sounds Like Crowes. It is a Deadlands podcast and has the single greatest group of role players I’ve ever heard. Incredibly fleshed out character and world built by the whole group. They work together to set the scenes, framing everything in movie terms (aka we start with tracking shot of a train entering the station before the camera pulls back to reveal the Crowe boys, hands hovering above their holsters) The DM is spectacular and always seeks input from the players. I cannot recommend this podcast enough.

all of the first ones I recommended are family friendly, don't know about the others because I've never listened

updated my list!
I was thinking it would be awesome if when somebody were to try to learn a new system through Gamers Plane or even if they just wanted to learn a new system they could look here If somebody could make a list of the Most Common Systems on Gamers Plane that would be awesome

That'd be Runekyndig

.

Runekyndig is the most common system?

Would be interesting to see Custom split up, though. But I guess that'd have to be done manually

Yes, I would be very interested in that too since I play in mostly custom games. But yeah, seems like it might be some work.

More importantly is the actual plays of each system

Tastes in actual plays vary so wildly. I'm not sure how useful of an idea it is to just make a list like that. But it can't hurt. For such a list, the focus should definitely be on finding APs that talk a lot about how the system actually works instead of just being entertainment, for the aforementioned reason

If some kind of 'learning' or smart-tagging system could be employed, I think breaking custom down into various systems is doable. Especially if a couple of folks curated and managed the list. I could be convinced to help with that sort of thing.

That's a good point especially for Systems like D&D where there are so many actual plays after all it won't much matter of we've only got one choice. Another thing to consider is one shots done by podcasts that typically run another system.