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Thoughts and Review
The Delvers, one of the O.G. actual play podcasts of the OSR, follows the adventures of the Dungeon Master's family through a 2013 romp in the Barrowmaze using the Labyrinth Lord ruleset. It is family friendly, faithful to the genre, and commonly recommended to newcomers as an entry point to old-school actual plays: being exemplary of how the movement felt and played at its genesis.What I Like
First, I like the DM Notes. At the start of each episode, there is a brief moment where the DM talks about the episode, how the play evolved versus what he expected, and how what could have gone differently would have affected play. Additionally, on one or two occasions, there are Q&A episodes talking about the game and the players that provide an exposé on the ecosystem that is the Delvers' home game. These segments - and these episodes - are a great resource for fledgling DMs, or DMs looking to understand how an OSR game would maintain tonal fidelity to its roots. Where in most actual-plays, the viewer is assumed to either know the motives or to derive them based on outcomes, in this podcast, the DM feeds it to you in a concise and easily digestible snippet at the beginning of each show. It makes me wonder if the players ever, listening to the podcast, changed up how they approached the game in subsequent sessions.Second, each player tends to operate several characters over the course of the series. I had initially thought that this indicated they ran a stable "with a main" rather than a single character, but by the end of the series, I believe it is more indicative that they ran a character with hirelings and occasionally, when running one-offs, ran a character other than their primary character. In any case - this represents two under-utilized aspects of old-school gaming: initially, in the original decade of the game's existence, it was common to have multiple characters - a stable, if you will - to run, depending on what the adventure to be undertaken implied; additionally, hirelings! The use and adjudication of hirelings is a quintessential part of old-school gaming - especially if you are running fewer than a dozen players at a time, as 99% of gaming tables do and trying to run an adventure module written for the period.
Third, the procedures that the party follows to check for and get around traps is exquisite. Although there is rolling involved, the party interacts with the environment, having a back-and-forth with the DM to produce the necessity of those rolls: the back-and-forth being a favorite part of my personal table's experience. The fluidity of delivery in the Delvers combined with the natural mastery of established procedures leads to a smooth illustration that, though most OSR games are highly lethal, it is not impossible to walk away unscathed as a talented player.
Last, I like that it's a podcast. Most of the actual-plays I watch these days are just that - watched. The visual streamed medium has taken over as the dominant form of play, and although replays exist to accommodate people like me with hectic or irregular schedules, the video-centric nature of a streamed actual play places emphasis - intentionally or not - onto the visual elements: meaning that the experience is lessened if you're trying to listen to it in the car.
Note, it's not a bad thing to be video.
The most highly rated actual play (by me) that I've experienced is video.
The most highly rated actual play (by me) that I've experienced is video.
But I don't still don't watch it in the car.
This is true for a couple other audio actual-plays that are out there and I have been exposed to - so it's not unique to the Delvers - but I felt the need to put it out there and this is a good segue.
What I Don't Like
The audio of the Delvers is intentionally crafted to feel like it's the 80s again: the editing feels like you're recording something off the radio onto a cassette tape, there are cultural references appropriate to the era embedded; by and large, the podcast does this artfully. However, in order to maintain length and focus on the adventure, a session of 3-4 hours is condensed down to 20 minutes - tops - with the notable exception of their Tomb of Horrors episode. This editing means that the action in episodes can be hard to follow - especially early in the series, before the publisher really got into the groove. Additionally, the publisher includes sound effects - some of which in early episodes can distract from the game rather than enhance it. By about the 1/3 mark, the sound effects are fairly seamless - again, as the publisher got into his groove - but the editing, its jumpy nature specifically to highlight specific elements of the session, force the listener to pay close attention in order to get the full gist of what's going on.What I'm Undecided About
Overwhelmingly, episodes of the Delvers are short - running between 15 and 20 minutes. On the one hand, this is very convenient: one commute worth, one trip to the store, and you can consume the whole episode. Additionally, in being as short as it is, it's very condensed - so you have a lot of material thrown out there very quickly to pick up. On the other hand, however, the shorter runtime means that some of the babies get thrown out with the bathwater in the interest of time, as detailed above: and because the podcast focuses on the adventure, a varied amount of content is cut out: thus, no two episodes are the same length. Part of me wants there to be more consistency - but the other part recognizes that, in order to maintain fidelity to the intention, that consistency in length and substance becomes less of a priority. Being as old as it is, it is also entirely possible that the runtime was a byproduct of the age - how long did videos / podcasts actually run when this was released?The second element that I am undecided on is the propensity of the podcast to skip over both combat and town RP. The focus of the podcast is on the adventure - on the delving process - and admittedly, combat can be a bit boring in an audio-only sphere (or even a visual one, if not done properly!) in the more bare-bones systems common to the OSR. On the downside, the elimination of combat precludes the exposition of a significant section of the rules - combat being one of the few elements of B/X and its clones that is universally heavily codified - and the elimination of in-town activities, specifically acquisition of supplies and negotiation with merchants, etc., likewise precludes exposition of a significant section of the experience: that is, player skill - one of the key tenets of OSR gameplay - includes the ability of the players to adequately procure supplies that they anticipate they may need in the game. Chalk, chalk dust, pitons, spikes, and poles - these kind of things are used by the party, but we don't actually know that they have them until it comes up: so it's obvious that the acquisition is occurring - it simply occurs off-screen. So - on the positive side - we do see it occur, and thus a new player will be inspired to think about what they may need and will be inspired to play outside the box to solve problems; similarly for combat, a focus on the dungeon, on the adventure, and on the puzzle aspect of the game will help to spotlight the expectations of the playstyle: you're there for gold, not for glory.
Further Reading
The Delver's Campaign Journal - a text format of some of their other adventures - is available at http://thedelvers.com/. On the "B-Side" link - to Burned FX, where I listened to the podcast series - are a handful of links to other podcasts and other actual-plays. I have not verified the links, but it may be fun to tread these uncharted (by me) waters if the Delvers had posed something you enjoyed.In Conclusion
I burned through the Delvers podcast in two days. It was my background noise while working and it was my entertainment during breaks. It is quickly addictive - its quirks becoming endearing and its shotgun delivery fitting perfectly into a disjointed listener as I tend to be while trying to work at the same time. Additionally, the DM is a fairly talented DM and handles the game well - something that may be augmented by the fact that they are in fact his family - promoting creative thinking without being unduly soft on the adventuring party.The Delvers is worth a listen - and is of particular value to fledgling DMs due to the accessibility of the format. For that reason, I rate the Delvers Leather with Shield. I debated between this rating and Chainmail - as I enjoyed the podcast, the Delvers themselves, and I find myself wishing that they had come back from the indefinite hiatus that seems to have ended the story - but the key to the rating is educational value for aspiring OSR enthusiasts: the podcast is very enjoyable and worth listening to while presenting about 2/3 of what an at-the-table experience will feel like.
In any case, keep on gaming!
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