Musing about Dungeons

Podcast Name: Dungeon Musings Where I Listened: YouTube Where It's Available: Still YouTube System: Most of them...

Chainmail with Shield

Thoughts And Review

Dungeon Musings is a semi-daily actual play live-stream on YouTube of various D&D and D&D inspired systems. Run by Kevin B. Madison since at least 2015, the channel produces games for a fairly consistent stable of players recognizable within the OSR and gaming community. The streams cover a wide variety of systems - including both in-print and out-of-print editions - and follow a number of different story arcs, depending on which game and which campaign is being streamed in any given video.

Full Disclosure

I like OSR games - and as such, I watch almost exclusively Dungeon Musings for the content that follows that interest: specifically, I subscribe for AD&D, AS&SH, and occasionally Low Fantasy Gaming. Admittedly, LFG is a bit too dicey for me, but the theme is there: and theme is key.

This represents a subset of the content available to consume on the Dungeon Musings media outlet, however it represents the totality of my experience with the channel and is the basis for this review.

What I Like

As I joked about above, Dungeon Musings is absurdly prolific. As I am finalizing this writing, he is actually streaming a Zweihander game: having streamed 16 videos in the month prior to this moment. When I was unemployed in college, at my D&D height, I was running 8 games monthly: my home game and a weekly friendly-local-game-store game: the Dungeon Muser doubles that output while, as far as I can tell, having a family and full time job on the side. Due to the volume of video being produced, it becomes virtually impossible not to find something in the stream for you. Kevin Madison gives 1981 Gary Gygax's work ethic a run for its money.

Hats off to you, Kevin.

The game - regardless of which system is being used - is very ruling-heavy. This is a good thing. Rather than allow questions regarding the rules to slow down or otherwise damage immersion in the game, the DM makes the call, moves on, and remains consistent through the session. Though changing the pattern occurs in the off chance that the rule is truly there and truly different than how they played the game, these don't result in retcons of what happened nor do they interrupt the consistency of the stream. Knowing that continuity of play and the play, itself, is far more important than absolute fidelity to the RAW differentiates this live-cast and YouTube channel from many others.

Dungeon Musings makes good use of environment rules. The DM is consistent in his application of lighting when dealing with the visual and otherwise engaging with his player's senses circa their character experiences. Specifically, in modern vintage, darkvision has become somewhat ubiquitous: if you have a character that doesn't have it as a racial power, you have it as a class ability; or lacking that, there is an item that makes up for it without further consequence - or your DM simply runs lit dungeons: something anathema to old-school play in several regards, the margins herein being incapable of holding while remaining faithful to the spirit of the post. The games run on the Dungeon Musings channel evoke a sense of claustrophobia, a sense of the unknown, and produce an excitement and tension to the adventure due to their engagement of the senses and due to the element of the unknown that consistently perforates underground or otherwise indoor adventures. Episodes wherein a party explores a cavern, or delves into an ancient temple - those episodes are episodes to write home about.

Fourth, I like the DM. He just seems like the kind of guy you'd want to play with. He laughs easily, seems to work hard on DM-prep to make the game go smoothly, and I like his beard. Not one of those big Billy Gibbons meets Phil Robertson numbers that frequently graces the chin (and neck) of D&D enthusiasts - but one that's maintained and clean: flows well from scalp to side-burn to short-and-sweet. Important to stay on topic, you know.

When binge-watching, the prolific nature of the channel can be both boon and curse definitely boon only. That is to say, I enjoy his Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea - but if I want to watch nothing but Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea, I have a lot of videos to churn through before finding what I'm wanting to see. Similarly, It can be a challenge to follow a particular campaign, as they mix together somewhat capriciously - in terms of actually playing through sessions: so between any two connected episodes, a totally random number of other, unrelated games might be played a super convenient YouTube feature that the author uses, "Playlists", to curate his series!

Section updated to reflect the extremely magnanimous education provided by the Muser, himself! Original text left in strike-through, for transparency, but official post edited for accuracy to illustrate a feature and benefit of the channel that I had hereto missed.

The aforementioned granular and convenient curated playlists are visible on his channel here. If a prospective GM is interested in a particular system, this feature will empower that GM to specifically focus on that system and see it run in a real environment; or if a watcher, like me, is following a specific story-line while on a commute or during an exercise routine, this feature makes it very easy to watch through mentioned story-line hands-free; one episode after the next.

What I Don't Like

If I were to complain about one thing about this podcast - it's Pathfinder.

The DM is talented and likeable, the material he produces - the dungeons he runs - are very consistent with the game philosophy of the original hobby: but in his replete video repertoire, he likewise includes a handful of new-school games and new-school groups the players and ethos from which periodically diffuse into old-school sessions. This can manifest in long stretches of players waxing poetic regarding their character's motivations and perceptions or reacting with a prolonged internal monologue for something as simple as a fight-these-goblins encounter. Additionally, some of the story lines in the games seem forced - that is, they were planned by the DM and the players, rather than taking the bait on the hook, find themselves impaled by the spear gun of plot. I fast forward through those parts.

The above does not dampen the experience for the Dungeon Muser's players. He has a wide and largely consistent stable who truly enjoy the game. If that's something that you enjoy, you will enjoy the channel; if it's something you're not comfortable with, you may end up skipping a lot of content.

In Conclusion

On a scale of clothing-only to plate armor, I rate this play cast Chainmail with Shield. There is a ton of good content, and hours upon hours of good listening - but it does get dragged down on occasion by stretches of expose, of inner monologue, or sometimes even banter that feels like its going on too long: forcing me, at least, to skip ahead. In addition, there is a lot of good exposure to how the various games are supposed to work - and though the DM is very talented at keeping them separate (that is, rules from one system never slip into another unless the rule is individually simply brilliant as a house rule) - but there are also several systems I'm not interested in and don't embody the spirit of the old-school: meaning that the almost daily video may or may not

Kevin posts the schedule of his games on a weekly basis, visible on the Community page along with reminder updates, N-spirational material, and other media pertainent to the hobby and the channel; in Discord; and at his @dungeonmusings Twitter handle.

On that last note, maybe there is a schedule I'm missing or simply haven't caught on to... but I guess that just happens if you use D&D play streams as entertainment for a morning elliptical routine.

In any case, I will continue to subscribe to the Dungeon Muser - and I would highly recommend giving him a shot in your case as well: as you don't have much to lose in trying and you may well gain something worth keeping.

Additional Listening

Madison produces a podcast of the same name - Dungeon Musings - available on your preferred podcast player. I do not delve too deeply into the podcast here as I wanted to focus on actual play, which Dungeon Musing produces a lot of. There are enough people talking about OSR - not enough people demonstrating it.

Never enough. Keep it coming, producers!