I was on my first Actual Play show! I'm playing Veneer (he/him) in an Echoes of the Veil campaign that's hosted and produced by Nerds with Dice.
After over a year of playing Dungeons & Dragons consistently at professional, pay-to-play online games hosted on [affiliate link!] StartPlaying.Games, I set a goal for myself to level up by getting onto an Actual Play show. The longer-term intention for this comes from learning that I'm actually pretty damn natural at role playing and I'd love to not pay to play anymore, actually get PAID to play, and maybe even make a career in this industry, somehow.
But! One step at a time!
I've organized this blog post into separate so that you can skip to the parts you care about:
The game we played: Echoes of the Veil
Learning how to play Echoes of the Veil
Onboarding with Nerds with Dice
What's Missing?
Production Value
Building professional relationships with other cast members
Promoting an Actual Play Show
Disappointments
Conclusion
Things to keep in mind:
I am relatively new to the TTRPG scene with one year of playing experience.
The longest I've ever played in an ongoing campaign was 8 months, up to level 7. I joined my first campaigns in 2025 and I am in my early forties. I have a lot to learn but also I feel DEEPLY in love with this hobby. I'm so grateful to have found safe circles on the internet to take up space with my new obsession.
I spent my first year of playing D&D staying in campaigns that weren't a good fit, so I'm out and exploring now.
I'm here for the collaborative storytelling, not the combat. But I realize this hobby has strong origins as a combat-focused game so I respect that.
I play TTRPGs because I want to play pretend with other adults, not because I want to get good at a game or do a lot of damage.
Okay, let's go!
Watch us live!
August 30, September 6, 13, 27
4:30pm CDT on twitch.tv/nerdswithdice
The Game We Played: Echoes of the Veil
Echoes of the Veil (EotV) is described as a fast, cinematic cyberpunk TTRPG about revolution, tough choices, and taking down corporate power.
We're playing with the creator themself being the GM: Raffi of Reverie Rebels. It's new to everyone at the table and was just published very recently in a beautiful hardcover that is frickin' gorgeous.
I've played a few sessions of Blades in the Dark (BitD) and happen to be a big fan of heist movies, so with EotV being a "hacked system powered by Forged in the Dark & CBR+PNK" it was easy to jump into.
I recently purchased Legend in the Mist and found some similarities in that, too, especially with the 6-point allyship track mechanic that was introduced during our first session. To be fair, I haven't played a lot of non D&D at this point so everything seems new and exiting to me!
That being said, with the mechanics that were introduced in Session 1, I enjoyed:
The simplified character creation system that didn't box me in. I play a pretty boy, soft hearted, muscle brute and I'm able to pull that off without feeling bound to a specific build.
Rolling two D6 dice. My D6s need some love.
The reliance on flashback instead of prepping and planning ahead. Any preparation, contacts, skills, or tools you have on the job are acquired via "Flashbacks." I'm familiar with that mechanic via BitD but in this case, it costs you something to have a flashback. And my pretty muscle boy is about to max out his in-game stress pretty soon at this rate (on the other hand, I, the player, and completely fine with it!)
The devious encouragement from Raffi that we "Just take a little stress!"
The artwork for this game is amazing. Raffi is wildly talented invisual art and it shows in the PDF pages we were given access to, for basic rules and explanations. At one point in the live play, we were talking to an AI (ahem, I was flattering it to advance our allyship track with it but apparently that counts as flirting? [confused in asexual]) and Raffi mentioned that we can see what the AI persona looks like, with the graphic that was shown on-screen. I know it's typical to have graphics of NPCs ready to go but in a high stakes sorta apocalyptic sci fi world, I'll admit I was really intimidated to be talking to a giant head depicted at the size of the 70 floor tower we were infiltrating.
Learning how to play Echoes of the Veil
Learning to play EotV was easy but simultaneously also the hardest thing to grasp during play, ironically. I think that in my most ideal world, we would have played a full session 0 to get to know the mechanics of the system and have our characters develop relationships (and also to do some warm-up RP with each other) before bringing it to a livestreamed platform. But hey, leap before you walk, right?
I realized between Session 0 and our first live Session 1 that the less-obvious (to me) purpose of bringing this cast together for a 6-session mini campaign is to demo the EotV game in a live play environment. There's nothing wrong with that, of course, but my story-focused, narrative-driven brain assumed that we would be telling stories focused on our characters within this fictional world... and we technically still are!
But there's a difference between a slated 18 hour game that's for collaborative storytelling in front of an audience (even a very small one) and an 18 hour game that successfully demonstrates a brand new set of rules that are now available to purchase and play at your home tables.
Nothing wrong with either one, but my undiagnosed neurodivergent brain had to do a little bit of rearranging to accept the dual purpose nature of being on this cast.
Onboarding with Nerds with Dice
Nerds with Dice has their shit together. The onboarding and back end process was very impressive and more in-depth than any of the professional (paid) tables I've played with.
My project manager brain appreciated the thorough online application form with information about the campaign, the schedule, safety, responsibilities, and high encouragement for queer people, people of color and of marginalized communities to attend due to their desire to have diverse casts of performers.
That set the tone early for me that this would be a good experience if I got accepted!
Dates and times were already set since this would be a livestreamed show. So we didn't have to do the annoying thing of finding a date and time to even start. It's a show, this is when it is, can you do it or not, let's get started and prepare.
Session 0 was conducted with a combined lines and veils list, which I thought was really handy. At the paid tables where I play, we usually submit our own private lines and veils sheet and it's sorta... kept secret and made the responsibility of the GM? But with this cast, we were provided red/yellow/green list that automatically creates "strikeout" topics from people voting on a specific topic if anyone marked it as red. So handy.
There was a joint (publicly visibile) list of whether we're okay with romancing, to which everyone answered "YES" (with me being the exception. I chose Ask First because sometimes I'm just not into it and I like to have the choice.)
What's Missing?
A bigger audience! Nerds with Dice is incredibly organized and demonstrates values that closely align with how I wish more GMs and tables were run (at least my one experience with them so far, anyway) and I wish that the audience and reach matched the caliber of work that these lovely folks put into their product.
There's a sense of leadership that I've come to expect from GMs and I think the folks at NerdswithDice have it.
Standing for something, and demonstrating it versus just talking about it. That's something I have not seen without actively seeking it out at almost all TTRPG tables, where diversity in all its forms is explicitly welcomed and protected.
I want this production team to succeed!
Production Value
Pardon me while I continue to fangirl over Nerds with Dice and their systems that stroke my project manager brain just the right way.
If you're not familiar, Discord can be a real asshole when it comes to audio. For the EotV livestream we used something called Video Ninja and it literally worked so well. I'm like, why doesn't everyone use this for meetings, etc.?! Why are we all giving our money to the Zoom and Google overlords!
We did have some problems with background music only being heard by us cast members, but nothing coming through via the stream. I hope that issue gets fixed next session because the music was really good. 10/10.
We had some major livestreaming delays. I had my phone showing the twitch stream so I could reach chat and woof, I think we reached a 10 minute delay at some point? At least what's how much was cut off at the end when we signed off in our Video Ninja room. That meant that our replay VOD on Twitch isn't complete, unfortunately. But again, Nerds with Dice to the rescue! They're working on splicing some of my local recording with the official one, and that full replay should be available on Youtube, soon.
Building professional relationships with other cast members
I've learned in my first year of TTRPGs that it helps a lot to start a brand new campaign (especially one with complete strangers on the internet, and moreso if it's going to be livestreamed) with connections between characters pre-established.
I personally prefer a buddy comedy vibe with a group of friends within an adventuring party versus a group of strangers getting to know each other.
I wanted to initiate those bonds with whoever wanted to join me, and to my surprise (at the time. I'm not surprised now!) all of them said yes and got back to me. My character has pre-established connections with all of the party members and a bit of a harrowing backstory that my GM already put into play. Gosh, this hobby is fun.
Maybe I've been playing at the wrong kinds of tables, but I was floored by the the nurturing and respectful RP style of my fellow players and the GM! One year of gaming has me expecting to have to come to a table with my dukes up, so I get caught off guard when I'm playing with people who are respectful, don't interrupt, circle back and ask what you were gonna say, and are just generally very kind and complimentary. It's new for me. I should unpack that, sometime.
I'm already sad that we only have 5 more sessions with this crew. We were missing two crew members at session 1, and will be swapping out seats over the next two weeks because of scheduling and availability so we won't have the full 5 person crew until the last half of the campaign. That's kind of a nice, unintentional tension builder though, if I'm gonna put my writer hat on about it!
Promoting an Actual Play Show
Because I felt so welcomed and I was impressed by how organized and well produced this experience has been so far, I feel more compelled to help promote it.
I did a bit of a (respectful and reasonable, imo) spam parade in the discord servers that I thought would show enthusiasm for my first attempt at Actual Play. I'm so grateful for the folks who showed up in the Twitch Chat to watch!
I even edited my own teaser trailer to give the producers and cast something to share on social media between sessions. Having a background in marketing, I know it's a lot easier to get people to help spread the word if you literally give them a thing to give to other people. People seemed to enjoy it and eagerly share it! Yay!
And now I get to put on my creative thinking hat and look out for other moments we can use as teaser snippets for future episodes.
Disappointments
I'll admit... I'm disappointed that some people didn't show up for me. I had some close friends get super excited with me about getting accepted to my first APs and ask for details on when my show would be on so they could watch me play. And then they didn't show up.
I knew it would happen. After all, watching a 3 hour live play of a game is a lot to ask.
Personally haven't even watched any shows in a while, and have mostly only watched the higher tier shows (NADDPOD and High Rollers and Dimension 20). But if I had a close friend get onto one, and I literally asked for the details, I'd show up, you know?
Well, at least this disappointment tells me that having an audience is important to me (and you know, people showing up when they imply that they plan to do so), and I can take that into account as I build a fanbase as an AP performer.
Still, acknowledging disappointment is still important. Ah, well!
Conclusion
Being a castmember with this limited run of Echoes of the Veil is a game of self-trust and willingness to just have fun at this point. I'm impressed, I'm happy, I feel welcomed, and I'm learning a lot about myself and this industry. And that's only after a session 0 and session 1!
I'm here for it! I'm really looking forward to session 2 in a couple weeks.
I hope this experience blossoms into something that changes my TTRPG experience in the best ways as I venture into year 2 of this amazing hobby.
[from Artist & Writer Rochelle Sanchez]
Thoughtful reminders emailed twice a month (on the 5th and 20th) about running your business in a way that actually fits your life. Plus behind-the-scenes stories, art drops, and the occasional rant, because have you SEEN the state of the world right now? Yeah, you get it.
