Some of us are getting together to play an RPG, but not everyone has been in one before. One of the prospective players has asked me for a transcript or something they could read to get a sense of what actually goes on in a game. I'd point them to a podcast, as in Where can I find actual play podcasts for RPGs?, but I'd like to read it myself first (and I can't listen to podcasts), so:
Where can I find written transcripts of actual game sessions?
I'm basically looking for a script like:
John (Thograk the Orc): I dig through the pile of dead rats.
Susie Minzen the Paladin): Eww, that's gross! Why did we invite this orc
again?
Frank (DM): Some of the rats look tastier than others, but no, you don't find the Barrel of Healing buried in the pile.
but from an actual game.
Best Answer
There are a few rare bloggers I know of that write up their games like this.
Hack & Slash writes transcripts of his old-school games for illumination of the old-school playstyle and for self-improvement as a DM, as far as I can tell. You can read them all at Hack & Slash's transcript tag. There are only six as of this moment, but each one is extensive and reads like an authentic session transcript, "uhs" and everything.
An excerpt from a Hack & Slash transcript:
Another I know is the Delvers. The style there is editorial, not the line-by-line transcript that you're looking for, only interspersed with quoted exchanges. However, I've yet to read a reconstruction of a game that felt more like what roleplaying is like. The editorial effort goes into helping the reader appreciate what it's like being player and DM in these games and on some choice player interactions, and the quality of the writing is such that it becomes transparent to the feel of the session. As a bonus, the entire blog is editorialised-transcripts and updated frequently, so you've got a mountain of material to choose from there.
An excerpt from the Delvers: