Actual play podcasts are podcasts that play tabletop role-playing games in order to tell a story. Functionally, they're similar to "Let's Plays" of video games, only more freeform and open to improvisation, with the story sometimes veering wildly off-course from what the game master had originally intended. Actual play podcasts can make you laugh just as hard or cry just as easily as any other work of fiction, and there's never been a better time to start listening. With that said, here are some podcasts to get you on your way.

Friends At The Table

(The title card for the current season of Friends At The Table, Twilight Mirage. Photo from Podbean)

This occasionally-fantasy, occasionally-sci-fi, currently-a-bit-of-both podcast is one focused on "critical worldbuilding, smart characterization, and fun interaction between good friends", as every opening of every new recording session will tell you. Led by Austin Walker, editor-in-chief of VICE's video games division Waypoint, Friends at the Table mainly runs Powered by the Apocalypse games; these are intuitive, modified versions of the roleplaying system devised by D. Vincent Baker for his game Apocalypse World. Furthermore, Friends at the Table is a show committed to diversity. Many characters are openly people of color, women/gender non-conforming, or LBGTQ+, with numerous LGBTQ+ players and a black game master, a relief from the lily-white, heteronormative universes of writers like Tolkien. Seasons 1, 2.5 (a mini-season in between seasons 2 and 3), and 3 take place in the fantasy world of Hieron. Seasons 1 and 3 are run using Sage LaTorra and Adam Koebel's Dungeon World system, while season 2.5 uses John Harper's Blades in the Dark and Avery Alder's The Quiet Year. Season 2 takes place in the cyberpunk universe of COUNTER/Weight and is partly run using Mechnoir, an expansion of Jeremy Keller's Technoir, but midway through the season switches to Hamish Cameron's The Sprawl for reasons of conduciveness of storytelling. The current season, season 4, takes place thousands of years after the end of season 2 in a place called the Twilight Mirage, and is played with Frasier Simons's The Veil. Friends at the Table can be found every week on iTunes or on their website, located here.

Listen to Friends at the Table if:

- you want to experience completely unique universes

- diversity and representation are important to you

- Dungeons and Dragons's number of systems are off-putting

One Shot

(Photo from The One Shot Podcast)

Perhaps getting caught up on one of the innumerable actual play podcasts out there is a daunting task. Perhaps you don't want to commit yourself to a single set of characters. Or perhaps you've grown bored of D&D, Shadowrun, or any other of the standard suite of games used to make podcasts. That's where One Shot comes in. James D'Amato leads listeners through various one-to-three episode-long adventures with various improvisers and tabletop RPG nerds in tow, using games that you might not have heard of, even if you're involved in the TTRPG scene. Through the combined efforts of D'Amato's exceptional GMing and the skilled improvisation of every guest he brings on, One Shot is a podcast that's sometimes deadly serious, sometimes utterly hilarious, but always a joy to listen to. One Shot can be found every week on iTunes or on the One Shot Podcast website, where you can also find other actual play podcasts made by the same group of people.

Listen to One Shot if:

- you don't feel like getting into a podcast with a long backlog

- you like TTRPGs and want to find some new games to play

- you want a low-commitment podcast to supplement your actual play podcast-listening habit

Film Reroll

(Pictured clockwise from the top: Paulo Quiros as Jareth, Andy Hoover as the Cowardly Lion, Jon Miller as Indiana Jones, Jocelyn Vammer as Anna, and Pitr Strait as Marty McFly. Fan poster by Reddit user trueboots)

Remember when I said that the story in actual play podcasts can veer wildly off course from what the GM originally intended? The Film Reroll is pretty much the embodiment of that. The main gimmick of the show is that famous films are transformed into RPG campaigns, which, as anyone who has played in or GMed an RPG campaign will tell you, leads to the plot going off-the-rails hard and fast. It’s similar to One Shot in that games usually take two to three episodes to complete, but instead of rotating through cast members and games, Film Reroll uses one system, Steve Jackson’s Generic Universal RolePlaying System, a slightly obtuse system better known by its delightful acronym GURPS, and has a single cast with occasional guest stars. The GM is actor Paulo Quiros with off-screen assistance from writer Timothy Nolan, and the players include director Pitr Strait, writer and game designer Andy Hoover, conspicuously non-titled Jon Miller, woman of many titles Jocelyn “Joz” Vammer and actor and writer Scott Aiello. It should be noted that not all the players show up in every episode. The Film Reroll has covered Speed, Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure and Alien, with the plot going much, much differently from their cinematic counterparts. If you’ve ever wondered how your favorite movie would’ve gone if things had been ever so slightly different, give the Film Reroll a try. The Film Reroll can be found here, or on any of the platforms listed under the “More Ways to Listen!” tab.

Listen to the Film Reroll if:

- you don’t want to have to pay attention to a lot of worldbuilding

- you don’t want to sift through a gigantic backlog

- you’re curious as to how some of your favorite films would go had things went differently

The Adventure Zone

(The current album art for The Adventure Zone. Photo from @TheZoneCast on Twitter)

Let’s be real, most of you reading this probably know what an actual play podcast is because of The Adventure Zone. You can hardly be blamed, though; the brothers McElroy, Justin, Travis, and Griffin, along with father Clint, captured lightning in a bottle with The Adventure Zone: Balance, crafting a rich, living universe with memorable characters and unique settings through the medium of Dungeons and Dragons. For those unaware, The Adventure Zone: Balance is the first arc of The Adventure Zone, as GMed by Griffin, and it follows human fighter Magnus Burnsides (played by Travis), elven wizard Taako (played by Justin) and dwarven cleric Merle Highchurch (played by Clint) as they hunt down seven apocalyptic artifacts known as the Grand Relics for an organization known as the Bureau of Balance. The arc was known for its wildly oscillatory tone, ranging from utterly hysterical to surprisingly heavy and moving. Balance concluded after 69 episodes, and currently the series is in intermission, with several shorter experimental arcs and rotating GMs. At the time of this writing, the current arc of The Adventure Zone is known as The Adventure Zone: Commitment, a superhero story GMed by Clint using Fred Hicks and Rob Donoghue’s Fate system. No matter what the arc, though, the McElroys can be counted on to deliver a wonderful story, helped along by their signature oddball humor and the occasional scimitar to the emotions. The Adventure Zone can be found every two weeks on Maximum Fun’s website.

Listen to The Adventure Zone if:

- you enjoy the McElroy family of products

- you want a quirky yet highly engaging D&D podcast

- you like the sensation of emotional whiplash

Bonus: Critical Role

(Photo from Critical Role Wikia)

While not really a podcast (though it is being turned into one), Critical Role remains one of the most influential factors as to why actual play podcasts and TTRPG shows in general are as popular as they are. Eight prolific voice actors from anime and video games get together every Thursday to play Dungeons and Dragons spearheaded by one of the best dungeon masters in the business in the form of Matthew Mercer, who you might know better as the voice of Levi from Attack on Titan or McCree from Overwatch. Critical Role’s love for D&D shines through in every scene and every character, from all the fleshed-out players characters with voice actors putting their skills to work to the more than five hundred non-player characters that Matthew Mercer has breathed life into, every one of them somehow managing to have unique voices. Part of the fun of Critical Role is seeing your favorite voice actors play D&D with each other, but there is a deep, absorbing world and story for you to find over the first campaign’s 114 episodes. Be warned: this is not a show for the preoccupied. The first campaign has recently concluded and at the moment, there are one-shots being run by the players, so if there was ever a time to get caught up on every three to five hour-long episode of the original run before the second campaign gets underway next year, it’s now. If you can stick with it, however, you’ll find a lot to love. Critical Role is live-streamed every Thursday at 7 PM Pacific on Geek and Sundry’s Twitch channel, with the episodes being uploaded to the Geek and Sundry website the Monday after at around noon as unlisted YouTube videos. The videos are publicly listed about a month or so after they’re uploaded.

Watch Critical Role if:

- you watch a lot of anime/Western cartoons and/or play a lot of video games

- you want a masterclass in roleplaying, both from a player’s perspective and a DM’s

- you’ve got quite a bit of time to kill on your hands