This video is a sequel to Every Edition of D&D: A Quick History of the World’s First Roleplaying Game, and it’s a deep dive into all the oddball corner-cases that I missed (or that others insisted I’d missed) the first time around. Some of them, like the D&D board games, you’re probably familiar with, but I’m guessing that everyone will be surprised by something on the list. (I was!)
Am I still missing something? Let me know!
I’d mentioned on my last video that my efforts to set up a better video production pipeline by hiring a professional editor had spectacularly failed when they were completely incapable of turning in a single professional video that could actually be shared. I’m still working on fixing that issue so that we can get more regular updates on the Youtube channel! I’ll keep you posted!
So what happened with your video editing debacle? Did they take your money and run, or were they just incompetent to do what you asked of them? It seems like that might be a story in itself.
It was a company called Vidchops. They were just unable, despite multiple rounds of revision, to deliver usable video. Of the three videos they were working on:
– One had mistimed audio, which they never corrected.
– Another was repeatedly delivered with gaps between shots (so you’d have video-black screen-video-black screen-video, etc.).
– For the video you see above (which was re-edited from scratch by Sarah Holmberg), they ignored timing notes and would just use random cover images regardless of what was actually being discussed on screen.
And there was a plethora of other minor technical problems, too. Plus, the editing was just BAD. There was no sense of timing and a constant push to add “interest” with 1995-era pop-up graphics and sound effects.
These are pretty basic talking-head videos and the only real challenge should have been cutting around the glitchy video that my current recording setup intermittently creates. (Didn’t used to, as you can see in my older videos. Don’t know why it started. Planning to solve it with new equipment soon. That’s a whole different thing.) But they were SPECTACULARLY bad at it.
What I’m looking for is a fire-and-forget relationship: I shoot the videos, send an editor the footage, review and give notes, get a final video and review it for approval for upload. (That would put me in a position where creating video content for the Alexandrian is viable.) But I was spending almost as much time pulling ultimately unusable footage out of Vidchops as I would have spent just editing the videos myself.
The 3.0 and 3.5 SRDs have so little missing that the key bits can be transmitted by word of mouth or trivially replaced; that’s how Pathfinder 1e happened. The 5e SRD, by contrast, is missing a lot more, to the point of not quite being playable on its own. Meanwhile, the 5e Basic Game, while playable, is severely lacking in options. However, the 5e SRD *and* the 5e Basic Game complement each other nicely, making a game that, while lacking much of what the “real” 5e has, is still well-rounded enough to allow for a good experience.