As always, sorta transcript follows:

Hey folks, Dan, a.k.a “Tech Sully” here – with the first of our crossover podcast reviews. We got a lot of suggestions – so if you haven’t heard back from me yet, you’re still in the queue for me to get back to you.

So the first podcast past the wire was the “Four Orbs” podcast – and Dave the DM was the first to contact us. Now a little backstory on me, sure I’m a techy guy, and a nerd but I’d been raised in the “satanic panic” of the 80s and was banned from Dungeons and Dragons – by my parents.. So while I’ve run across some D&D and D&D themes in games, I’ve never actually sat down and played a round/campaign with friends.

This podcast was an eye opening experience for me, a world I’ve heard of but never seen, or heard at least. Dave Cole, the DM sent a handy listening guide – episode 6, episode 21, and then back to episode 1. I did, that, and also listened to a couple other episodes along the way, and the last episode at the time of recording.

Apparently there is a lot of competition in the DnD podcast world, so I also sampled a few other podcasts in that genre. Four Orbs has a lot to put it out ahead of their peers – the audio quality is great for one – which is everything when you’re trying to tell an audio story. They also have music that Dave composes and performs.

From sampling other podcasts in this genre, the advantage of having all of your people in the same room is apparent too. It is clearly a passion project that they take seriously, and seriously have fun. As you’ll learn from the interview at the end of this podcast Dave edits down 3 hours to the core parts of the story, but still leaves room for solid laughs. Editing that is a monster task and I’m impressed with the amount of work he puts into it.

Heck in our 10 minute podcasts here at the Podcaste, I have to edit out sooo much profanity and eating sounds it isn’t even funny – Dave does a fantastic job of editing. His cast is Ryan, Ryan, Matt, Stephen and Diedra – and they really commit to the characters. One of them plays a tiny bard with a huge ego, which led to my first gut laugh, the other folks commit to their roles as well.

As a DnD outsider I can see how the stories that evolve from these games are so compelling, and I envy Dave and crew getting to have so much fun. Check them out in the show notes for this show, and on iTunes as “Four Orbs” Coming up now is my interview with Dave Cole, aka Dave the DM.

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Where to find Four Orbs online:

http://www.fourorbs.org/

Straight shot to the most recent episode via iTunes: