Narrative Declaration Update - September 2024

Hey Benefactors! Zoran here with an update for you all.

(The video in this post is a summary of how we're recording/streaming now. Forgive my long winded nature of explaining things!)

The Warhammer 40K Wrath & Glory Show is on the way!

We will soon begin our adventures in the grim dark universe of 40K. As a reminder, it will premier on September 18th at 8 PM CST on Twitch & YouTube!

We had some concerns from our community about this one also being a Patreon exclusive like Kingmaker. This will not be a Patreon exclusive to help with those concerns. However, how we now record our content and handle our live streams is changing.

(The bars do a little animation! ooOoOoO!)

We're changing how we're recording/live streaming our content.

(The video on this post explains it all a bit more)

Big Note: We are experimenting this format with the warhammer show, if it doesn't work out we will change course.

For years, we've been chasing our bi-weekly schedule. It has worked for us in those years, but we've kept noticing a few glaring issues.

• When a player is sick or wants to go on a vacation/trip, this would cause us to skip an episode as we'd need that player's character. The missing episode would create a massive gap of missing content on all platforms.

• Due to only playing bi-weekly, it was hard for us to give our all due to the large gap between sessions.

• The format doesn't allow enough time to edit some episodes finely. This causes our editor to process the videos quickly, leading to some quality issues sometimes. (Which isn't their fault, to note)

Our goal is to adjust things to keep the content flow more consistent while also making the Patreon & our paid subscription side of things more valuable. To do this, we'll be taking a page out of Kingmaker's book.

We record our Kingmaker episodes every week, baring any interruptions, and release the episodes out to Patrons bi-weekly. Our players and GM prefer this method to our current format with Rotgrind and Rotgoons. And this helps solve the critical problems listed above (in theory). So we will be switching to this new method with a few adjustments.

Why are we informing you of this?

Although it seems like a simple background change, this will affect how you, as paid members, receive the content. And it also changes the cadence of our live streams.

We will livestream our episodes weekly now, then take those VODs and send them to Patreon as soon as possible with an audio version. YouTube & Twitch paid members will have the raw VOD automatically saved and ready for them.

This means for Patrons, you get the raw VOD episodes more frequently and in batches. Then when we're done with a season or a big batch, there will be a break in content as we prep for the next episodes.

For the livestreams, this means there will be weekly streams (barring any breaks/interruptions).

For YouTube, the episodes will continue to release bi-weekly, and due to us recording in batches, when we take a break or have a delay we should have enough content flowing that there aren't any interruptions.

This helps with our goal to keep the podcast side and the YouTube side of things consistent. As YouTube has been a major source of growth for us, and we'd like to maintain it better by being more consistent.

We are changing our mentality with live streams.

For a long while we've been doing our best to grow the live streaming side of things. Playing with a live studio audience helps the players feel appreciated when a joke lands or helps gauge how the audience feels when a sad or epic moment happens. Having a live reaction makes the play experience so much better.

We've noticed that our audience far prefers to wait for the VOD instead of attending the streams live. Which is understandable, with conflicting schedules, timezones, work hours, and other conveniences, it's not viable for a large section of our audience to attend these streams.

So, our mentality with streams is shifting. Our focus will be more on the YouTube/Video side of things, instead of being a live show first. The streams will be a sort of live-studio audience feel that still has interactive chat bits.

So, while we're streaming, you may see us pause to correct a tech issue or stop if there is an issue that needs to be resolved. You'll be seeing how we'd record offline.

The Wrath & Glory TTRPG show will be our testing ground for this new change.

Also, you'll hear our offline rants about how most of the Sonic characters are jobless. It gets weird sometimes.

The last episode of Rotgoons Season 2

Rotgoon's season finale will be on September 14th at 3PM CST. And we hope you can join us in sending a farewell to our loveable cast of goons. (We couldn't make it last week due to a player being out)

Although this isn't the absolute end of Rotgoons, it is an indefinite hiatus until the player's schedules and interests align.

We hope to see you there live on Twitch!

Merch Delays

Sadly the talent agency I was apart of imploded itself, and so did some dealings with the merch company we were working with. But! I have some good news.

We're in talks with another merch company, and we're hoping to get the merch train rolling again. I wanted to give those interested a heads up. We've been working super hard behind the scenes for this, and we hope to get you T-Shirts, hats, and hopefully some cool dice soon.

Thank you all for your patience and understanding. We're always doing our best to keep the content flowing in a manner that benefits you the most.

Keep being Magical!

Zoran