Temper is Twitching 2: ItmeJP

By. Temper

   This month’s stream is ItmeJP, a more traditional Twitch channel, where host JP McDaniel plays games and gives running commentary. JP plays everything he can get his hands on, while combining the Twitch channel with his own perspective on YouTube. Recently, through a Google Voice account, he gave his audience a chance to pitch a game for him to try out. However, JP’s traditional gaming stuff is not the main reason I watch and subscribe. (Just for full disclosure, I will make it a point to eventually let you guys know the channels I subscribe to.)

  Around October last year, I was sitting at my desk as I had finished watching a League of Legends stream. I then decided to browse the games currently being played on Twitch. Surprisingly, I saw that Dungeons and Dragons was an option. I was curious, so I clicked it, and noticed that one channel in particular had a lot of viewers. I decided to take a look, and that’s when I saw five people play D&D over Skype, using a popular web app called Roll20 to make their rolls.

   If that doesn’t sound like a very exciting thing to watch, you’re not too far off from the truth. The RollPlay, as the streams are called, consists of four to five Skype windows showing the players with a lightly animated background and overlay. The Roll20 window is shown only when needed. Despite the simplicity of the stream, the cast members do an amazing job of playing their characters, while also painting a picture of what is happening and advancing the story presented by the DM. I was hooked after that first night and became utterly invested in the story and characters, to the point where I even had a favorite character.

  The RollPlay brand, found on twitch.tv/itmejp, currently includes four shows. This  includes the original show, RollPlay: Solum, as well as RollPlay: Ehbon, both of which use Dungeons and Dragons. RollPlay: Dark Heresy uses the WarHammer 40K RPG system. Their newest show, RollPlay: R&D, switches the system, story, and characters every six to eight weeks to expose viewers to different pen and paper RPG systems.

  I actually found the channel and the RollPlay shows when I had desperately wanted to play a pen and paper RPG, so that probably inspired my initial zealous love for it. I continue to almost religiously watch the streams, even subscribing to have access to previous broadcasts, just in case I miss a show. (If you don’t subscribe, JP posts twenty or thirty minute segments of the past week’s games every day on his YouTube channel.) Whether you’re a pen and paper RPG fan or not, I recommend giving the show a shot. I think you might enjoy yourself.