Presenting Tabletop RPGs to the general public - on TV

All I can say is, it was cool!

So, without further ado, here's me presenting the tabletop RPG on a Bulgarian TV. Look at the first clip on the linked page. I'm the guy whose name begins with the green and brown shirt, whose name begins with "A". That letter is the same in Cyrillic alphabet, so you should recognize it.

http://www.bitelevision.com/playgasm-na-21-dekemvri-rolevite-igri-hobi-za-dobra-kompaniya-i-uyutna-atmosfera-pogled-otvatre-na-eskejp-staya-i-koi-sa-top-3-pri-natsionalnite-otbori-vav-fifa-18/

Sorry, no translation is actually available. But that show was the first time I was sorry for not owning a deadtree edition of Traveller!

Presenting (tabletop) RPGs to the general gaming public

I was on a gaming show (called Gamegasm) today. We were invited to publish RPGs to the general gaming public.
Overall, I believe it went well. We showed some gaming books. A friend brought Pathfinder and Dark Heresy. I'd brought Eclipse Phase, Under the moons of Zoon, Low Fantasy, Crimson Blades, and Sorcerers of Ur-Turuk - as well as three out of the four Bulgarian gaming titles ever published. (The one I didn't bring, "Adventuring with sword and magic", is actually the one I like best and have played the most - but it turned out I don't have an intact copy of it).
That's the first time I was sorry I'm (mostly) a PDF-only guy. I wish I had a Tekumel sourcebook, and Exalted corebook, and a Traveller book to show! And maybe Kuro RPG, while I'm at it?
But I didn't, and since I learned about it on Thursday, and we were invited for Saturday, well...I don't think even Amazon could have brought one of those to my door fast enough!
Ah well. You do what you can with what you've got at the moment! And that's what we did.

Was it enough? We'll see! What I do know is, we were invited for a follow-up. And the guy wants to record a gaming session, and air parts of it on the TV.
I said "only if you yourself participate". His answer: "of course, it wouldn't be fair otherwise!" We have an agreement, and exchanged FB coordinates.
Overall, I'd say that's a success.


*Fun fact: before the show the host came to us to ask us to give more detailed answers. In his defense seems he's had negative experiences with an Youtuber who answered too much with "yes, it's exactly like this" or "no, it isn't".
Just remember: we were three guys with experience in GMing. I simply cut him short and said "there's many questions where you'll get a different answer from each of us, in turn, and they will all be correct - so don't worry".
We kept our word. He later admitted he felt like he's been interrupting us (and was right, but we didn't mind - we all knew the time constraints).

*Practice, practice, practice: Well, we inverted that one, out of necessity. In fact, we didn't have almost any time to practice our performance...except we took a cab, and worked a bit while travelling. We reached the conclusion that we can easily explain that...if the public is into geek/nerd jargon. Conclusion: we needed refining our pitch! (I have pitched PRGs a lot to new players, often successfully - but I always tailored the pitch to the specific group, after observing them. On TV, you don't get to do that).
So, while waiting for our turn, we used the other guests - we were waiting in a kind of lounge - as "test subjects", with their permission. We tried to explain to them what RPGs are, and refined the explanation until they got it. Then we used a version of this explanation on the show.

*Note: 25 minutes is what we had. We wanted to show an RPG session, too...but in that timespan, it would have been kinda difficult.
Then again, we were invited to do a follow-up. We'll see what we can do.

*Questions: I wonder how it's going to work when we shoot a session. I mean, how much can you show in 25 minutes? (Well, that one is easy: exactly a 25-minutes worth of material. Compared to a 4 hours+ session. Riiight).
Should I use something fast, like an indie one-shot title? Or should we do the trick of all Youtube sessions, and shoot a whole session, but edit it to an acceptable length by only showing the important moments?

*When is it going to be aired? Well, the show would be aired on 23rd, I think. They usually upload it to Youtube afterwards.

Traveller PCs

Sometimes you roll a character for fun.
And then you realize you've just learned the protagonist for the next "Fast and Furious"...

Name: Wan An Xia
Age: 42
Race: Human
Gender: Male
Characteristics:
Strength: 7
Dexterity: 12
Endurance: 8
Intelligence: 13
Education: 9
Social: 4
Skills:
Computers-0
Streetwise-1
Language-0
Medic-0
Drive(wheeled)-3
Flyer(winged)-0
Melee(Blade)-1
Steward-0
Trade-0
Melee (unarmed)-5
Admin-1
Flyer (rotor)-1
Athletics(strength)-0
Gun Combat(slug throwers)-3
Recon-1
Vacc Suit-1
Persuade-1
Mechanic-1
Career History:
Career: Citizen = Terms: 3
Career: Army = Terms: 2
Career: Merchants = Terms: 1
Rank History:
Career: Citizen = Rank: 2
Career: Army = Rank: 2
Career: Merchants = Rank: 1
Event History:(characteristic, skill and benefit effects are applied automatically)
Life Event: You`ve gained a new Contact
Citizen Event: Your business expands, your corporation grows, or the colony thrives.
Citizen Event: You befriend a superior in the corporation or the colony.
Citizen Mishap: Hard times caused by a lack of interstellar trade costs you your job.
Army Event: You are given advanced training in a specialist field.
Army Event: You are assigned to a planet with a hostile or wild environment.
Merchant Event: You are given advanced training in a specialist field.
Age Event: At the age of 42 your Endurance and Strength were reduced by 1 point

Benefits:(characteristic, skill and benefit effects are applied automatically)
Cr 50000

Revolver
Ally: Corporate Executive
Weapon: Monoblade
Combat Implant: Subdermal armour
Free Trader

Got to wonder, what kind of a catch did the Free Trader come with?