thinking about how much i appreciate friends at the table (what else is new), particularly that i am bored out of my mind by war and mech stories most of the time... there are exceptions but most of the time i struggle to engage with the scale and the idk, degree of separation from the characters?
and the sci-fi seasons are definitely harder for me to follow than any others, BUT they've done such a good job of depicting the aspects of large-scale violence that are accessible and horrific that i can engage with the story? especially in the most recent season.
in palisade 17 there's a point where austin stops to emphasize that there's a solid minute of ceaseless gunfire that the character has to sit through and it would have been very easy to say that it's overwhelming and move on. but being forced to actually think about the sound and how long a minute can be was incredibly effective for me (a person that is sound-sensitive and frequently working with very loud equipment).
idk. critical world building!! i guess is the thing that i'm appreciating (that i often appreciate)!!
this style of storytelling isn't one that i even knew was possible prior to encountering actual play podcasts, and on a surface level you'd think people stopping to discuss choices/actions/stakes in the middle of heated scenes would make it hard to follow or reduce the impact/sense of suspense? but it's additive (to me at least)! i'm almost always thinking more about the making of a movie than i am about the plot, for example, and it's like hearing the making of the podcast allows my brain to relax and listen instead of speculating on creative processes.