As of the writing of this article, the podcast, Drunks and Dragons, has 154 episodes under its belt. With such a large back catalogue, one of the most common questions we get from new listeners is: with which episode should they start, the assumption being that there are too many episodes to ever catch up, and maybe it is ok to skip 70 or 80 of them.
The only good answer to this question is Episode 1. Skipping episodes means missing the origins of inside jokes, the building and layering of plot and story, and the world-building of our beloved Drunkeros. But answering with “Episode 1” can also turn away new listeners, daunted by such a huge time commitment.
Our solution is to abridge as much of our back catalogue as possible. We are taking our one to two hour episodes and boiling them down to 10 to 20 minutes. The priority is to keep the story intact, while not losing our favorite goofs. It turns out that when you condense the episodes down, they turn into concentrated madness…but in a good way. The abridged episodes will be a great way for new listeners to get caught up, and also a really fun trip down memory lane for the veteran slabbers!
We will release three abridged episodes every week on their own podcast feed until we go through the first 30 episodes. If things go well, and people like the little episodes, we will continue on and release as many as possible. So let us know what you think!
With that in mind, please enjoy the revamped Episode 1. Editing help this week comes from Kieran Bennet (@mrk_bennett).
The new feed is available on iTunes at this address: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/abridged-drunks-dragons/id1082209915
You can subscribe manually on iTunes or any other podcasting app with this RSS feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/AbridgedDnD
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I think this is a good idea. A great way to give potential new listeners a taste of that spicey spicey honey without dumping the whole bag on them. If they like it they’ll probably end up listening to the whole thing anyway (in this metaphor that would be eating 170lb of honey)
Good luck and get those dollar bills girl.
While I think this is a great option, I intend to keep listening to the full length podcasts until I’m caught up. I’m currently on episode 61 and have been listening for about three weeks. Thank you.
As a matter of purely personal taste, I was an early listener to both MBMBAM and Drunks and Dragons, and it seemed like the earliest, longer episodes were always more immersive, better paced, and rewarding to listen to for me. Over time, both podcasts began tending more toward shorter run-times, more commercial placement, longer administrative intro and outro segments, a great deal of polite fan-outreach, and lots of reminiscence about past episodes, minimizing somewhat the covering new ground (this can be forgiven of course, since it would be a massive time commitment for the creators to constantly maintain their original level of involvement or creativity in the midst of leading busy lives).
I think “Diet Sprite” Drunks and Dragons will be a great service to busy professionals with little spare attention, who may prefer talk-show style TV formats to dramatic storytelling, but for those in the latter camp I highly recommend the original, unabridged episodes as the clearest, non-distilled essence of the genius of Drunks and Dragons, with a DM and a group of players awkwardly, obscenely, and hilariously trolling each other, and all the producers of D&D, with a sublime degree of mastery reflecting the ultimate hubris of the human spirit and the pitfalls of traditional fantasy escapism.
Nothing is changing about our regular episodes, and this show in no way threatens their length or breadth. Even if this show isn’t for you, I would encourage you to support its creation. Bringing in new listeners, even if they are more casual listeners, will help stop the show from dying out.
I have to agree with URACS – I love Drunks and Dragons, both how it was at inception and the form it now takes, but personally the longer episodes were just packed with hilarity for me. I enjoy both kinds but want you guys to know that the early episodes are some people’s jam.
Who needs abridged, I just discovered you guys 2 months ago and I’m already 1/2 the way they (78th episode).