SCRIPTING A DUNGEONS & DRAGONS™ VIDEO: A REPORT FROM A FUGITIVE.

(This is the full version of the blog post. When recording for video, I had to get used to noise suppression all over again. The software cut a few opening syllables from several sentences. I went in and edited the audio rather than doing a second take.)

Usually, when it comes to making YouTube videos on roleplaying games and boardgames…
   Wait a bit. You can’t hashtag board games. That’s where the one-word spelling comes in, and I am stuck with its utility now…
   When planning videos, I’ll have an idea for a Dungeons & Dragons™ explanation or something along those lines. This needs props. I film those, with one eye on the general idea. Okay, I’ll talk about this game, that publisher, and those hobby accessories.
   If I have those hobby accessories, I’d damn-well better film them. And if I don’t have the items to hand, I’ll film around them. This is how JAWS came to be a much better movie than originally envisioned. If you can’t film the broken rubber shark, film around it. Show the shark’s viewpoint, not the malfunctioning shark prop’s flippery-floppery. Rely on John Williams. He’ll see you through.
   Repeat as needed.
   For assorted copyright reasons, I won’t be relying on the score from JAWS in my video. Spielberg maintained Robert Shaw’s sobriety throughout the production by running the actor through a game of Dungeons & Dragons™. Shaw insisted on playing a cleric called Mr Blue.
   John Milius dropped in as Bear “The Bear” Bear. He and Shaw dangled Wizardy Chappie over the cliff until he revealed the secret password.
   Wizardy Chappie was played by Richard Dreyfuss, who then lied about the password anyway. This is why JAWS was a nightmare to film. And that…is a roleplaying fact.
   Lights, camera, action. Place a prop. Film it. Replace it. Film the next one. Switch camera angles. Leave a camera in shot for the sheer hell of it. Film the next thing. Usually I’ll be listening to someone else’s roleplaying video in the background as I film mine. How many shots will I manage in an hour? Enough.
   I drop those snippets into the editing software and strip out the random audio. Yes, I may move the order of shots around quite a lot. And I might have to ditch footage. Shoot things again. Or shoot a new item that I should have included in the first place.
   With the order of shots arranged around an idea, I write up a script. Shots lend themselves to talking-points. That’s why I film them in the first place. The script is done. I record the audio. That audio is edited. I throw the audio track onto the video compilation.
   That’s when the real editing begins. I extend the length of a clip or shorten it, in keeping with the narrative pace. After that, I look at the visual gaps I’ve left behind. Those must be filled. I’ll use clips from previous videos. Or I’ll film more new stuff. Maybe I’ll repeat a clip several times for effect. Gradually, I fill those pesky gaps.
   I might cut more audio out. You realise you’ve made a point that is…bullshit. It’s a technical term. There’s a statement based on shifting sands at high tide. You misread a source. Or you contradict yourself with wild abandon. The primal audio flies in the face of the civilised video evidence, and you retreat to higher ground.
   Usually, not always, I make time to throw in a roleplaying fact. These roleplaying facts are utterly fake. You’ll know this by the phrasing. And that…is a roleplaying fact.
   Or a boardgaming fact, depending on the topic. Rarely, I find that I don’t use the phrasing at all. It’s a thing on the channel, but it doesn’t define the channel. Dry understated caustic humour? That’s just the default setting in Scotland.
   For this entry, I decided to script a blog post and make it the audio for a YouTube video as well. Some people use the term DungeonTube. I asked Doctor Google about this and encountered requests for directions to The London Dungeon by means of underground rail.
   There was also pornography.
   DungeonTubers, apparently, cover topics in dungeons: specifically, that’s Dungeons & Dragons™. Generally, there is also pornography.
   Already, the wearisome term DungeonTuber has gained a pejorative aspect. Whether they’ve accepted corporate cash to shill out products or not, some roleplaying game hobbyist YouTubers…
   Damn it, I half-typed Hobbit YouTubers and I’ve lost the train of thought. It’s underground, and heading in the direction of a London-based dungeon. Hobbit YouTubers. I’m not here to disparage the height of certain or even uncertain YouTubers.
   My point, misplaced in the mists of typing, is that DungeonTuber is heading for a change in meaning. A YouTuber who makes videos about dungeons, dragons, dungeoneering, delving, and the organised looting of ancient temples…could be described as a DungeonTuber.
   Potatoes in The Temple of Elemental Evil are far too easy to describe as dungeon…tubers.
   Anyway. Point. The term is shifting to occupying the space of little more than an insult for house shills, real or imagined. YouTuber accepts money for plugging dungeon products. Oh, a DungeonTuber.
   I take in a whole load of YouTube videos on roleplaying games. There isn’t one channel presenter I can think of who uses the label. We’ll go out on a limb here. I think that’s unlikely to change.
   You always go out on stout limbs. And always fall from shaky ones.
   Speaking of presenters. Yes, we all have limited time on our hands…and around our elbows, I guess. So while recording videos, I listen to YouTube videos in the background. These are accidentally recorded onto my video clips. That’s why I strip out the audio.
   To save even more time, I listen to virtually all YouTube videos at double speed. If you start off with a fast high-pitched voice, I might listen to you at 1.5 speed – otherwise only bats can hear you.
   Why don’t I watch them? Many dungeoneering and dragon-ish YouTubers are talking heads. Low on visuals. I don’t need to see them to hear their points.
   This channel is the other way around. You see the props, miniatures, maps, and so on. My channel was based on watching a particular type of video. I won’t name the exact one. A quick check shows the one I’m thinking of has been taken down since.
   With one eye on making boardgame videos, I watched a video that was all about seeing players having fun. You couldn’t make out the board at all. The camera might as well have been in a field next to the venue.
   I went there to see the board. And, barely seeing the board, I decided I couldn’t make videos of that nature. If I want to illustrate a point in a discussion on this channel, I’ll throw in an illustration if I have to. Here’s the board. The bar is pretty low, but I still vaulted it.
   Now that I’m typing this up, I know I’ll fill in gaps in the video editing with previous shots of game boards. If I show you a game in a video, I could show the box, the game, the components, a few third-party accessories that make gameplay flow more smoothly…
   But at least I will show you the game, and not a distant shot of the house it was played in. From space.
   What else to say of making videos about boardgames and roleplaying games? I used to make videos weekly. Life got in the way. Now I make them when I feel like making them. Often, I feel like making them and life gets in the way.
   The one thing I haven’t been able to shake is cardboard damage. I open and close many a box here at this table when the cameras aren’t rolling. Preparation isn’t everything, but it’s where I start and so should you.
   As a result of all this cardboard activity, tiny particles drift across the black felt cloth. These bits and pieces build over the course of a few seconds into unacceptable levels of snowfall. I wave a magic wand and vacuum the hell out of the surface to make the gaming table semi-presentable.
   Another feature, and this may not be for you, is the unconnected background. I’ll populate the background with items from a different video. Either I use stuff I filmed last time or things I’ll put in videos next time around.
   This is a working game table. Often, I’ll leave the wooden organisers in the background with coins on prominent display. Those are signs of a Buffy game rumbling along. Buffy is a roleplaying game that uses drama points to generate twists in the plot or handy bouts of healing in the heat of battle.
   And I don’t like to disturb the display. Mustn’t knock the coins down into the abyssal depths at the back of the table. Players need drama. So the roleplaying display features in the background.
   No virtual tabletop for me. I run the table from here, in what Mary Shelley refers to as the deserts of Scotland. My players are scattered across the Cosmos. We may be in several countries, operating at different times, but we are united by different dice around the same table.
   And that really is a roleplaying fact. Here's the video.