An Interview with J Strautman
Shenuque and J talk all things actual play
By Shenuque Tissera, My First Dungeon
For this issue of the newsletter, I sat down with J Strautman to break down what’s it’s like to be a professional actual play performer and producer, from the differences between the GM and player experiences to practicing AP before putting it out to the public. J has done a variety of AP and audio drama performances as well as sound design, including as the co-GM of the podcast Planet Arcana alongside B Marsollier. They are also one of the designers of the science-fantasy RPG A Fool’s Errand.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Shenuque: I’m super excited to talk to you about actual play performing, which on your end, you’ve really touched all the parts of actual play—GMing, producing, playing, etc. So I’m excited to kind of get your thoughts on this one specific part of it. How are you feeling about AP performing these days?
J Strautman: I’m feeling good, I think the thing that I have noticed the most lately is that I really have very little experience as a player and a lot of experience as a GM and I’ve had a lot of thoughts about the ways in which those two are so different and also which one I like better.
Shenuque: I often hear people saying being a GM you’re still like a player. What do you see as the difference between being a GM versus being a true player at the table?
J Strautman: I really don’t feel as though I am a player when I’m a GM. And I know that when people are saying that, they’re saying that as a way to be like, “the GM deserves to have fun also and contribute in the ways that the players contribute.” But for me, I started in GMing also. So being a player is something sort of newer to me. I’ve been GMing for almost 10 years, and I only started playing maybe five or four years ago, which is kind of wild.
And for me, the biggest difference is that players think in micro and GMs think in macro. And the way that that presents itself for me is that I feel like as a GM, I am trying to think only in macro, so delivering big moments so that players can react to it in a large way. I am setting up moments to be big. And in turn, I am leaving space for my players to act in micro, which for me adds all of the nuance, all of the growth, all of the ways in which those big moments tie themselves together are the player’s job. And that is a skill that when people have it, it’s really remarkable because it adds way more depth to the story that you’re telling than what I can do as someone who’s just planning in the macro.
So, the longest I’ve ever played a character was Cherry in the Wildsea season of My First Dungeon and that was the first time I ever played more than I think one or two sessions as a player.
Shenuque: No way! Yeah, honestly, I say no way, but like the longest I played as a player was Amira in Perils & Princesses. Yeah, I have never taken part in like a long-term campaign of anything.
J Strautman: Really? Fascinating. Although, you started playing around the time you started recording it too, right?
Shenuque: Yeah, yeah, yeah. My first TTRPG experience was for actual play.
J Strautman: Yeah, that changes things.
Shenuque: Totally, that’s the only context I have of games. So how did you get involved in AP performance?
J Strautman: The crew that I made Planet Arcana with, we had done a 50-session campaign off-mic. And we live in different cities, so we had been recording remote long before COVID sort of introduced that to people. So that was something we were really familiar with, playing online, playing on Discord, and recording it mostly for our own reference. And then after we had started to wind down the long 50-session campaign (which was a 5e campaign), we ran a small horror campaign that B Marsollier, my co-creator for Planet Arcana, was the GM for—it was called The Island.
And The Island was very homebrewed, very horror, very spooky. It was so cool and so fun. But it was the first time that we were like, let’s try to record it again, just for our own reference. And we used like a ton of classical music, like music that we could never put on Spotify basically, but we edited and it was my first time trying to sound design something like that. And so we went crazy on trying to make that sound good for ourselves. And as soon as we knew that it was possible, it was a no-brainer that we then had to try to monetize it. So then we started Planet Arcana after that and no one’s ever heard The Island because we didn’t have good mics and it’s not worth it.
Shenuque: Ha, totally.
J Strautman: Listening back to that, it’s worth it for us because the storytelling is so good and it’s where a lot of this started. But like then for Planet Arcana we got good mics and started doing it with an intention to put it out for an audience so.
Shenuque: Right, you invested. And I think that’s huge.
So it’s also interesting, like you guys use The Island as a jumping off point and then start to do AP. A lot of folks are like, “I want to do AP” and then just jump right into it. I appreciate the foresight to just, like, try it and then make your own art.
Although, you know, sometimes after doing it for a while, you’re like, I wish this was just a game—do you ever wish that? That it was just still for the fun of the game, love of the game?
J Strautman: I don’t know. I go back and forth on that a bit because also B and I, we had been doing creative projects together since we were really young, because we’ve known each other for decades. And so we had been circling around the idea of making a podcast together. And when we recorded The Island, we were like, oh, we should do an actual play. We weren’t really familiar with actual play. I had listened to some of the big ones, but we didn’t know how big the indie scene was. It was just kind of a way for us to make a project together. And as much as I really value my off-mic gaming experiences, I also think that what we made in Planet Arcana was better because we did it with the intention of putting it out to an audience. But it’s pretty special to be able to have 100 episodes of a thing you did with your friends.
Shenuque: Where do you see yourself growing as a performer looking at your toolkit? And what are the skills that you think are needed to be a good performer?
J Strautman: I think this is now we get into my philosophical differences between a player and a GM because I think those are very separate skills. I feel like the skills that I’ve honed as a GM are knowing when to leave space and knowing how to make everything that I drop in feel really big so that the players have something to react just as big to.
Shenuque: Yeah, agreed.
J Strautman: I think that the strongest skill that people have, that I feel like I’m still honing, is learning when to take space and taking an appropriate amount of space and time and using the time that you have very wisely to make big decisions that are deep and nuanced. Being a player is really hard. It is a remarkable skillset that I watch, like especially a performer like you, who’s someone I’ve just performed with in the Planet Arcana AP (It’s a Gamble) and watching you be able to do that kind of thing where like I’m just laying down the tracks and then I’m watching you change the direction of the tracks. I’m not very good with metaphors.
Shenuque: Ha, I like it. No, that feels like how I play.
J Strautman: But the ways in which you have to add all the depth and the nuance to the things that the GM [puts out], that is a remarkable attention to detail, to your character and the ways in which they affect the world around them and the world affects them. It’s a lot to keep track of because you’re also doing that while listening to the other players do the same thing and responding in kind.
Shenuque: That’s such an interesting point because (I think it’s like a grass is always greener) when I watch GMs, I’m like, “how the hell did you do that?” Like watching you GM Planet Arcana, and with a co-GM too! You and B had such synergy and the complimentary styles of your GMing was so—I’d never been in an AP like that. So that was so cool to watch from that perspective.
And just the skillset of having to deal with little shits like me doing gremlin-ass track changing bullshit, but always having some way to reply and giving me more things to react to or heighten the thing I’m doing. That’s also a crazy set of skills. It’s a very specific kind of improv skill.
In the world of actual play, it’s like a very contained box of improv. And there’s two styles to it that you’re kind of talking about—this kind of crazy, kooky, reactionary style, where you listen to what everyone’s doing and play with it in a very traditional improv sense. And then there’s what you’re doing as a GM, crafting a world for these folks. You’re making the box for us to play in. And I find making the box to be so incredibly hard because, as you said before, you’re thinking on a macro level and I’m thinking micro.
J Strautman: Yeah, which are kind of two sides of the same coin because ultimately, it’s just justifying each other’s thing. But from two different angles.
Shenuque: Right, totally. And it’s so fun to watch GMs of all kinds take on roles as players with that mindset, like you or Brian or Bridgett Jeffries who is in Perils & Princesses. If you’re listening to that season, you’ll catch Bridgett as a player asking these GM-type questions of Brian and really throwing him.
J Strautman: Yeah, yeah!
Shenuque: And that’s so fun to watch. Because I break Brian in a very annoying player way that he’s used to, but then to watch GMs like you and Bridgett come in and really throw him for a loop. I can never predict what those people will do, because that’s not how my brain functions and it’s such a cool skill.
It’s why my biggest advice to players is to GM as much as you can. I personally hate it, but I have done it. If you can take a turn as a GM if really helps your tool set as a player. Knowing what your GM is going through, that perspective is so valuable and will allow you to in those moments to better know when and how to take up space. Bridgett is such a beautiful example of knowing when to take space and delivering masterful pieces of performance in Perils & Princesses. Playing with her, she’s just so fun to watch. Great choices, consistently.
J Strautman: Yeah, a highlighted choice for me in that season from her is the way that she thought so much about what her character’s role is within your party. And really every choice was to further that.
Shenuque: Yeah, that’s some GM thinking.
J Strautman: It is some GM thinking. Also, I want to jump off of one other thing that you said, which is like, I think that all players should GM a little bit. If you don’t like it, you don’t like it, whatever, you don’t have to it that much. But do it a little bit. It’ll be really helpful especially if you’re interested in doing AP.
Have a decent mic, know how to use it, have some performance skills and also know how to use them. Practice a lot. It’s worth doing this work before you even jump into your first performance. Just play with your friends, play solo games. Practice using the mic and practice performing before you jump in. And then the experience will be richer for you and everyone listening and the people that are playing with you.
💸 Coupon Clippings
Use these codes to score deals on some of our most favorite games and keep an eye out for more coupons coming up in future newsletters.
PERIL15 — 15% off Perils & Princesses, Sweet Revenge, or any game at Tabeltop Bookshelf
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🗞️ News Worthy
Sam Dunnewald’s latest Kickstarter for the new game Band-Aids & Bullet Holes is officially live.
Wyrd Science Issue 8 is out now with features discussing 50 years of Bunnies & Burrows, the the new Deep Cuts expansion of Blades in the Dark, and more.
Legends of Avantris’s enormous 1,400-page trilogy of 5e game books, Neon Odyssey, has already raised more than $5M and shows little sign of slowing down.
🎲 What We’re Bringing to The Table
🎥 Watch: Atmospheric Break Up! Part 1 An Orbital Blues Month Actual Play starring Brian Flaherty, Drakoniques, Stella Luna, Michelle Kelly, and GM’d by Zach Cox
📚 Read: Why Han Solo Was An Amazing TTRPG Player And TTRPG Players Of Han Solo Characters Mostly Aren’t from Old Men Running the World
🎧 Listen: After the Table | The Heart is a Dungeon: Telling Stories with Sound Design
🎙️ New From The Studio
Talk of the Table with Sam Dunnewald (Monday, May 4th)
My First Dungeon | Perils & Princesses, Ep. 8 (Thursday, May 7th)
Project ECCO (—day, May —th)
Talk of the Table with Cam Bradley of Game Found (Monday, May 18th)
PATREON EXCLUSIVES
Perils & Princesses Episode 8 Talkback (Thursday, May 14th)
