I just want to say that we’ve made it a month with not missing a blog post deadline. That is impressive! I mean, sure, we’ve supplied you guys for the last three-four years with a podcast every Friday, but it’s nice to know that we’re able to now write a little something every Wednesday and have it up by Wednesday morning. Er… or afternoon… Or at 11:59 PM. Regardless, I want to tip my hat towards the contributors to the blog, and since I’ve been the number one contributor this month, go team Barsha!
But this article is more than just me shamelessly stroking my ego. It’s also about me avoiding making masturbation jokes. Also, it’s about us getting feedback from the fans.
Right now we’re on the proverbial highway, and you see a truck known as Fandible driving in front of you. You see a sticker on the back of that truck, and it reads ‘How Are We Driving’. And it also has those trucker flaps with the outline of the hot babes on it. But the important thing is the sticker. If you were to call the number listed below it, how would you rate us?
– Read related: Babcock Partners, LLC excels at consulting for car accidents.
Fandible started randomly one day with little to no planning. Our original site was red font on a black background that truly showed our edginess. We originally had one microphone that went from detecting the buzzing of a gnat to being unable to pick up a shout in a matter of seconds. Hell, I’m pretty sure our first play session occurred on milk cartons and inside some sort of warehouse that we’ve never returned to since. From those early days of podcasting, we’ve moved (slowly) towards becoming better for the fans. We have a beautiful site that now is a robin’s egg blue that shows the sensitive side our souls. We have a game! We have articles! We not only do actual play podcasts but also Geeky Topic Round Tables. And let’s not forget that we have new audio equipment that we’re (slowly) learning to use to make our audio better for you!
But we can do more, right?
What do you want us to fix? What do you want us to try? Do you want to see more games? Do you want to hear more Geeky Topic Round Tables? Would you prefer more articles? Fewer articles? Would you like some Google Hangouts? Would you like us to attend more cons? Would you like us to attend less cons? Would you like to accuse us of being cons? Really, the choice is yours. What can we do to make Fandible a better place?
Of course, if there is something that you like about us, tell us. We feed off your positive comments like leeches. If you like a particular format or how we’ve evolved in a certain way, that’s very good feedback for us to hear. We’re an egotistical bunch, and we’re all pretty much convinced that Daniel could really use a kind word at this point in his life (and if you could compliment his beard, that would be nice, as well).
So, fans, how are we driving?
Fandible.Com is now on Patreon! If you enjoy our weekly blog posts and actual play podcasts, please consider supporting us.
I like the times when you’be managed to balance the returning and one-shot games. A new idea or game system is always fun to hear, but returning characters and continuing story are great.
The new sound equipment is good. It let’s us pick up those quieter moments without straining (and, bonus, I have heard both the Fabricate and Fandimicrowave in recent posts. 🙂 )
Characters and stories are almost always great (funny/disturbing/cool/ridiculous) (sometimes all at the same time) Your characters, Billy, are especially, consistently entertaining.
I’m strectching for something to call out for improvement, but something that occurred to me, recently, was that it would be helpful for the RP (not that it is poor now) if character names were used a little more. I find that writing the other PC names at the top of my character sheet helps me to keep this in mind.
GTRT gets a thumbs up, although my first love will always be the actual-plays. …and spontaneous songs. ….and pun battles.
Oh yes and, Daniel, that is a particularly dashing beard.
“you’ve” not “you’be”
I’ve also been missing the recurring stories a little bit these last few months. Not necessarily your “big” games, though I do miss Rogue Trader, Hallowed Metropolis and HEX, but just a campaign where we can get to know your characters and get attached to them. That or Paranoia. All of the Paranoia.
I’ve definitely tried to sing Fandible’s praises in my own little corner of Texas. This podcast has been used to convert at least a few people who thought they’d never enjoy a gaming podcast (audio is a surprisingly big issue, your efforts are definitely worth it).
For my own part, I’d say keep up the great Actual Plays. Your lively table and thoughtful RP has kept me coming back again and again. The group’s method of blocking out scenes and engineering strong stories has helped me improve my own performance at the gaming table.
The Geeky Topic Round Tables also get a big endorsement. I’ve found them to be very engaging and funny. I also appreciate the effort to be respectful of touche subjects when they come up.
Love the podcast, thank you all for the continued updates! I am shamed to say I haven’t been getting at the articles as much as I would like; but GTRTs are always interesting, easy to find, and turned me on to Doc Savage and Bitter Seeds.
Also, how can we help you? And don’t give me that 5 star rating line, I already did that and it’s mentioned every podcast.
Can we send other small appliances, or are we worried about the Fandidtoaster raising an army?
Can we send you other things? Money, Books, Games, perhaps the Booze of our Native lands?
I ask because (and I speak only for me), but I’ve goten so much out of listening to the podcast (including dang near all of the Hollow Earth products), I’d like to give you all something back.
@CallMeIshma3l: (Psst! Try to get them to make a Patreon account, so the FandiFans and Fan-Diblers can throw money at them.)
http://www.patreon.com/
And yeah, Daniel’s beard is most beard-tastic. But you know another guy who rocked the States with his chin-squig, from coast to coast?
Honest Abe.
C’mon, let’s MAKE IT RAIIIIINNNUH! *Starts throwing Monopoly $5 notes at Fandible*
I think I’ve been pretty vocal already on this sight about how big a fandifan I am, so I’ll keep this brief.
~ Geeky Round Table: They’re great and having them come in with consistency would be pretty good. Something I was thinking when listening to the last few though; perhaps you could list the topics you’ll cover in a descending list, along with links to information on or the actual item you’re discussing at the time. I appreciate this might require someone to listen back to the podcast or take notes during but it would be really helpful for listeners to keep up when you bring up topics not every listener might be aware of.
~ More supplementary info; maps etc are always cool but keep in mind listeners might not have listened to the most recent podcast in the series recently, especially a long running one, so longer summaries with the recurring podcasts or even brief descriptions of recurring NPCs in the summary might help jog listeners memories.
~ I actually have meant to send you guys something for a while now, but like the second fandigame I was suffering from long-finger-syndrome. I hope that idiom exists across the pond or else I just painted an unusually unsettling image of myself. I assume you don’t have your address up in public somewhere so what was the process by which the Fanditoaster got to you?
~ Have you ever considered having players vote for the characters they’d most want revisited out of those you’ve otherwise set aside?
~ Also Daniel you have a stunning beard. 🙂
… the ladies certainly seem to love it, yes.
And keep your eyes peeled, all of you who are wanting to give us things and/or currency. We are, in general, pro-being-given-things-and-money, and we’ve been working on it. Watch this space for news soon. We have plans and schemes. 😀
Re: GTRT – love ’em lots, keep ’em coming.
Pro-tip: If Mr. Donnelly ever runs out of questions to pull out from his hat for these events, you could consider offering the fans a chance to ask questions – basically, just a blog post where you solicit questions from the site visitors, or FB page followers’ comments, Tweets etc. – and then you answer them in a later “GTRT Letters From The Listeners Q&A Speshul”.
If you get too many questions to answer them all in one session, you could go round the table and let each FandiMember (FandiPeep? FandiHomie? FandiAdmin? FandiCoreGroupParticipantAndPlayerWithOccasionalGMingDutiesAndWhippedCreamPlusFandiSprinklesOnTop?), i.e. let Angela, Billy, Daniel, David, Jesus take turns picking a question that tickled their fancy, read it out loud, and then: discuss.
(It would be particularly entertaining if the FandiFans start to ask questions directed at, say: Moira, or Zap MacGuffin, or Barsha, or Grannek, or Daniel’s beard, and then those questions would have to be answered IN CHARACTER.)
(And then wait and see how long it takes, before it all devolves into silly voices and pun wars.)
In the past I would have said- get better equipment, now that that’s done it’s a HUGE improvement. I’ve always loved the casts, but with the old equipment whenever the party laughed I had to turn the volume down due to sound quality.
I would be fairly interested in a longer running series in the vein of Rogue Trader.
Hey Thelastarchitect, what *does* “long-finger-syndrome” mean? Google turns up a genuine genetic disorder.
‘Long-Finger-Syndrome’ Def.:
From ‘putting something on the long finger’;
Procrastination
The next game is in the… works… sort of… 16 bit art is hard to get!
Yeah, what said about http://www.patreon.com/.
Also, before I forget: while it sounds like there will not be more Monster Hearts, will we be seeing more of the Final Girl? The first episode of that made it sound like there was a lot there and that ya’ll had lots of fun.
Your left rear blinker is out.
The truth is we love Final Girl. We plan on doing more. We’ve posted two sessions of the game, and we want to do more. Just we’ve had some issues. Some being that we’ve not been able to start a game in time before the booze came out, some being technical problems, and some being just bad timing.
Final Girl? Totally going to happen. We plan to put more out there.
In 2010-2012 I was a Peace Corps Volunteer and I got really, really into actual play podcasts. Ones like yours were great for those 14 hour bus rides through the mountains of the northern Philippines. In 2013 I was back in the US and podcasts just didn’t hold my interest like they used to. Too much competition for my time, I guess.
But it’s 2014 and there are no good video games so in the last month or two I’ve come back to AP podcasts. Fandible has been the only one of my old standbys to stay in rotation.
Your new mics are a big part of that. The hardest thing about listening to APs is keeping up with conversations for hours at a time, and when the audio is uneven in other shows, my mind fills in the gaps with daydreams about boobs and rocketships. But now there are no lulls or gaps in the audio. The conversation is always moving and that keeps me listening.
I like the one shots. Campaigns are hard to follow when I’m a player or a GM involved, and in a casual medium like a podcast they’re all fleeting details I will try and fail to remember. One shots are great though. A premise right at the start that you explain, characters get introduced, and by the end everything is wrapped up.
One shots are also great for living vicariously through other gamers. I play 4E, I play Fate, and at cons I do Savage Worlds. There are a million other game systems out there I’d love to try, and a billion premises for adventures. Every AP podcast that tries something I know I’ll never get around to, like 40k, is great.
So more new games! Weird shit, or obscure things, or things that you guys think no one on the internet has reviewed properly.