Meeting of Minds – Craig Shipman (Third Floor Wars)
Without a doubt, the world of Actual Play has been a huge boon to the popularity of RPGs. This form of role-playing which has groups showing off the games they love through podcasts and video, began with Critical Role but certainly hasn’t stopped there. There is a smorgasbord of options to choose from, and they have helped drive awareness of the hobby and increase sales. As more people find their way into the RPG hobby, more shows pop up to promote their favourite games.
Craig Shipman’s channel Third Floor Wars (TFW) started out as a podcast interviewing creatives across the RPG industry about how, and why, they make games. It has since evolved to include Actual Play shows. In this new take on my Meeting of Minds interview series, I’ve been delighted to have the chance to talk with Craig about his channel. He sums his work up for me:
“TFW is an extension of two of my passions: tabletop gaming and the creative process.” says Craig, “The podcast (Tabletop Talk) gives me a platform to talk to creatives in the industry about why and how they make games. Where many pods focus on WHAT they make, I focus on them, their process, and what drives them to make. The YouTube and Twitch are mostly live actual plays of the games I am excited about. I focus on smaller games and try to showcase what play looks like. I teach as we play, trying to showcase the game and my style of GMing.”
Craig has covered a wide variety of games on his channel, from Forbidden Lands by Free League Publishing, to DIE from Rowan, Rook, and Decard, and Mothership from Tuesday Knight Games. Where did all this start though? What brought Craig into the hobby? “I got into fantasy as a genre from reading pulp like Conan and John Carter from Mars as a pre-teen.” Craig tells me, “That led me to buy the Red Box at Waldenbooks. That led me to Marvel Superheroes (the yellow box), then to GURPS. I stopped playing as I finished up college. COVID isolation pushed me to revisit the hobby. I found games like Blades in the Dark and realized how far the hobby progressed since the late 80s and early 90s.”
Despite wanting to immediately tumble down the Blades in the Dark rabbit hole, a personal favourite as you know, I decided to pick Craig’s brains a bit on Actual Play and how he sees that part of the RPG hobby. Having only participated in a few Actual Play episodes with the Unconventional GMs, I wanted to know what drives someone to start their own Actual Play channel.
“The reason I started to do them was a shortage of the type of AP I enjoy.” explains Craig, “I like watching an AP that feels like a real table. It teaches the game, features its mechanics, and showcases what play looks like at my tables.”
Craig is very much of the opinion that Actual Play has been a net positive for the RPG industry, raising awareness, and bringing in sales. He sees no threat from the recent launch of an official D&D Actual Play channel, but does caveat that as he does not need the channel to make money.
With so many actual play channels appearing on what seems like a weekly basis, I wanted to ask Craig his advice on new folk looking to start their own. “Do everything to respect your viewers.” says Craig, “Make sure you are organized, have good sound, and do the prep with the table beforehand. Too many plays are hard to watch and listen to. There is no skin lost by recording and posting anything, but I believe you need to know WHY you are creating the content and answer the most important question: why would someone watch this?”
The meteoric rise in the number of Actual Play shows is a symptom of the increase in popularity of RPGs and the breadth of theme and setting that the hobby now supports. Circling back round to Blades in the Dark, I discover it to be Craig’s favourite game (obviously a man of impeccable taste). Blades in the Dark has had a huge influence on his playing and GMing style.
“Blades was the first RPG to show me how to avoid the minutiae of the mundane from the games I run.” explains Craig, “I now feel comfortable ending scenes when needed and jumping to another scene without much, if any, need to play out what happened between them. I learned to be transparent with my players. Be clear about what failure will look like before they pick up the dice. Consequences can be a lot more interesting than success. It showed me that I should prep situations, not plots. One of the biggest things is learning to ask more questions than dictating the answers. “
When I ask about RPGs that have him excited, Craig does mention Scum & Villainy, a Blades in the Dark hack, as his top choice. Despite his love of Blades and the Scum & Villainy campaign he is running, Third Floor Wars is not just a single system channel, far from it. You’ll find all sorts of games showcased and Craig has more on his ‘want to play’ list. These include Monsterhearts, Flabbergasted, Mythic Bastionland, and Shadowdark.
City of Mists is another title that has long been gestating for Craig, and he says this is down to having trouble wrapping his head around the game. I get like this myself from time to time, and have to push through it if I want to review a title for the site. I asked Craig how he approaches getting a game ready to run.
“I have a difficult time describing this, despite talking about it all the time.” Craig tells me, “When I learn a new game, I go through several stages of digesting it.
- Basic understanding of the feel and mechanics
- Comfort with the basics: character creation, resolution system, etc.
- Understanding what type of play the designer is going for
- Seeing myself run the game
The last step is what moves a game off the shelf to the table. For some games, not all, I can see myself running the game. It is what play looks, sounds, and feels like at my table.”
I’ve been thinking a lot about how RPGs present themselves over the last couple of years, and some of my work on the site has been a reflection of those ideas. As someone immersed in the RPG world more than I am, I wanted to ask Craig what aspects of a game helped him with that last step of seeing yourself running the game.
“I find starter adventures help me a lot, even when I don’t run them.” reveals Craig, “Notated examples of play are also valuable. When a designer gives me a starter adventure or examples of play, they show me how they envision the game. From there, I begin to imagine how I would run it. What are things in the mechanics and setting that I find interesting? Can I see myself leaning into them and what would it feel like?”
We come back to City of Mists as a game Craig has stumbled over but feels he is finally in a place to run. This is a title that has had a few adaptations made of it and Craig feels that some of those changes would benefit the core game in a new edition “Since its release, we’ve seen the core system simplified and improved with later games like Otherscape and Legend in the Mist. I would love a second edition of the game with mechanics closer to Legend or Otherscape. “
I am not a huge follower of Actual Play, but there is no doubt of its influence on the RPG hobby. Games can be lifted in awareness, and sales, by a popular channel running it. Although I am interested in the phenomenon, I care more about the motivations behind such an endeavour. Chasing likes, being a slave to the algorithm, doing it for free products, are all hollow and meaningless. I want to see a mind at work, someone who has opinions and perspectives that I can understand, if not agree with. Craig Shipman is someone who loves the hobby, engages with it for all its flaws, and wants others to join him in celebrating it. I’ll leave you with Craig’s thoughts on the current state of the industry
“Lord – it has never been in a better place. SO MANY GREAT GAMES. I wish there were more than one company that dominated the space, but I think smaller games are starting to grow and find their customers”
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