Trans at the Table: Queer Oral Histories of Actual Play Podcast Fandom

Friends at the Table

Friends at the Table (2014–) is an actual play podcast focused on, in their words, “critical worldbuilding, smart characterization, and fun interactions between good friends.” The podcast is hosted by Austin Walker (cited previously) and features a relatively consistent cast of players affectionately called the “tablefriends,” most of whom have been with the show since it started. The show runs on an approximately weekly schedule, with episodes ranging from under an hour to over three hours. Currently in its seventh season, Friends at the Table has three main universes of play: a fantasy land recovering from a distant apocalypse called Hieron; a science-fiction galaxy torn by conquest, expansion, and hubris over millions of years called The Divine Universe; and a yet-unseen gothic horror/weird west world called Sangfielle. The cast has played using over forty different games systems over the years, with their most sustained campaigns using games that follow two prominent non-D&D frameworks: Powered by the Apocalypse and Forged in the Dark. The tagline of “critical worldbuilding, smart characterization, and fun interaction between good friends” summarizes well the approach the show takes to gameplay, balancing player discussion of what should happen in the story and its implications with the story itself. The show runs the gamut of emotions, often within the same episode. Economically, the show is funded in large part through a Patreon and does not have sponsors or run advertisements.

My investigation of Friends at the Table and actual play podcasts more generally could draw solely from traditional media analysis. However, I’m more interested in the myriad ways that fans of Friends at the Table connect with the show itself and with the fandom. Following Clark and kopas, the place to begin is the queer relationships of people and games, not to the exclusion of textual analysis but as a structuring framework that foregrounds people’s experiences of queerness in relation to the podcast and its fandom.

A study of queer actual play podcast fandom begins with specificity. The theoretical undergirding of the queer studies resists any attempts at universalizing treatments, and fan studies operates in case studies rather than generalizations. Such specificity applies not just to the chosen fandom but to the way the fandom is conceptualized and approached. Clark and kopas call for a queer game studies that foregrounds “matters of individual agency and survival; the relationships of people and games on a human level.” This attention to specificity and relationships points to the subject of my project: oral histories of queer Friends at the Table fandom. 

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