The 5 best moments in actual play of 2023

polygon.com:

From body-horror battlemaps and soaring choral anthems to creative live visual and in-fiction language lessons, actual play last year had moments that shocked, delighted, and even instructed — inspiring waypoints for players and performers alike. As a professor who studies troupes performing Dungeons & Dragons and other role-playing games, I’ve spent time with hundreds of shows across thousands of hours, watching and listening. These are the sounds, images, and ideas from 2023 that will stick with me for years to come.

Cassi Mothwin’s work this year has been an interesting mix of game design and performance experience, including the combination audio drama and solo journaling RPG The Sticker Game, which won her an Indie Groundbreaker award and the prize for best actual-play video at Minnesota WebFest. While not a prolific actual-play creator, her livestreamed playthrough of Chris Bissette’s solo game The Wretched is an engaging experience. With a deft use of digital overlays, her multi-camera setup turned humble wooden blocks into a stylized representation of a doomed starship. A tight 40 minutes of gameplay with an introduction and a 15-minute postgame reflection, it’s also a reminder of the impact shorter sessions and smaller systems can have on an audience.

Another livestream you may have missed that earned kudos across various web fests, including multiple nominations and awards, was Gudiya, a playthrough of Bluebeard’s Bridethat used the novel system to explore ideas of colonial and gendered violence in a South Asian setting. Three players are different aspects of the titular bride, and as their dynamic shifts, so too does the lush, animated representation of Gudiya’s face by Stella Luna — a gorgeous, and haunting, set of images of fracture and reintegration.

There’s a lot of strong contenders for original music these days in actual play, following in the tradition of Griffin McElroy’s work on The Adventure Zone. Musician J. Strautman of Planet Arcana follows