In today's episode, I will cover Demon City Slickers.
Disclaimers
There are a few important disclaimers to get out of the way before we start.
First of all, I understand this was a fan project and should be judged accordingly. I am thankful for the effort the cast has put into entertaining us with their stories, but there will be some criticism of the podcast present.
Secondly, any criticism made against the characters portrayed or how the game played out should not be held as criticism or insults of the game master or the players. Not everyone is perfect and sometimes something doesn’t work out or falls flat in execution. It’s important to keep the art separate from the artist and focus on the former without being disrespectful to the latter.
Thirdly, since I’m also a part of an RPG Actual Play Podcast that features Exalted games, I might be biased towards one interpretation and way of handling things in Exalted that might not agree with how others view and play the game, that’s to be expected. That and some might see criticising other podcasts a conflict of interest or something, so here is your disclaimer.
Finally, there will be some spoilers for the show, it would be rather hard to discuss some things without that...
Overview and minor things
Demon City Slickers is an Exalted actual play hosted by @WhatUpDemonCity. It is a comparatively short actual play that met an abrupt end due to the GM studying abroad and not wanting to support OPP. The game features a cast of four players, with one of them being introduced to replace a vacancy left by another.
The series takes the form of an audio-only podcast with 30-60 minute episodes with minor editing.
From what I understand the cast consists of students that mainly got into podcasting thanks to Swallows of the South, this being their first production.
Player Characters
The game features four PCs:
Mel (m), also known as “Harmonious Melody of the Seven Winds of Each of the Three Seas, Each of the Seven Winds Having Seven Individual Melodies Of Their Own Which Each Sound Simultaneously As The Wind Blows”, a Zenith musician and a sword master who sold his soul to a demon.
Kulak (m), a giant of a Dawn Caste, former pirate turned bodyguard for hire.
Kleefin (f), a dirty forest girl Zenith Caste with a familiar, Steely Dan, a giant fire breathing ostrich.
Leela (f), a sneaky sorcerer / alchemist with a Sidereal handler, Waterfall of Hidden Magics, aka Magi.
General Plot
In South-West of Creation, the city of Se'Arah Ayn is under Realm occupation. The PCs are hired to investigate a slaughter at a local Immaculate Dojo and find themselves in the crossfire of the local demon cults trying to vye for power before the Wyld Hunt makes its way to clean up the town. During the conflict, a mysterious Abyssal with a demonic artefact daiklave appears to further complicate matters…
With eight proper episodes and three flashback episodes, that’s all the plot there was.
Highlights
Filled with determination
During the various episodes the GM mentioned that this podcast is a student production, as well as discussing various problems caused by them going to study abroad and so on. In general, it seems making the podcast takes some determination on the part of the GM and the players, and that should always be celebrated. Even if the show might’ve been a bit rough around the edges, hopefully this drive to express oneself will continue to drive the team forward and into bettering themselves as the time goes on.
Extra editing and custom sounds
It was quite noticeable from the start that the show featured some music and sounds that were added as a part of post-processing. I believe the GM also mentioned that some of that music is custom made by him or his brother, which is an extra touch. While during the run of Demon City Slickers the effects could get a bit overbearing at times, a much more subtle use of the same editing used during Dollywood City Slickers showed more potential. Interesting idea, needs a bit more polish to be great.
Good content warnings
Similar to Swallows, this podcast featured some pretty good content warnings for an episode featuring a burning building. The crew also went an extra mile to create an episode summary for those that didn’t want to listen to the normal episode due to the content. Nice and considerate.
Shoutouts to other podcasts
Even being an upstart podcast, Demon City Slickers did give shoutouts to various other podcasts during its runtime. It was a nice thing for them to do.
Lowest point in Exalted
I think that out of all Exalted podcasts I’ve listened to or been a part of, Demon City Slickers might’ve hit the lowest point for the PCs I’ve witnessed. It’s the end of Episode 4, and the characters are dealing with a fallout of a fire at the police station. During the initial explosion one of the PCs, Kleefin, disappeared (because the player had to drop out). Their familiar, the talking ostrich Steely Dan, barely made it out alive, they were limping. Kulak had a major tie to Kleefin, so they were distraught. They also have gone into the burning building to fight the perpetrators going around killing people and they have outed themselves as a Solar. After letting Steely Dan rest his broken leg on Kulak’s boat, the PCs went to interrogate someone they had captured. After the investigation some mysterious figure warned them not to stick their noses where they don’t belong. When they came back, the boat was being investigated by the Realm police and was basically impounded with Steely Dan there. Mel had to lie through his teeth not to implicate them, gaining some considerable Limit in the process. At the end of the day, the party was penniless, because Kleefen was the character with the money. They were also homeless, because they used to live on Kulak’s boat. On top of that, Kulak has lost an important friend and soon all of his past acquaintances would rat him out for being a Solar. They were also jobless, since they pretty much botched their last assignment of investigating the Dojo. If that wasn’t enough, in a few days the Wyld Hunt would show up at their doorstep, looking for an Anathema to kill. So Mel and Kulak decided to make a shelter in the swamp for the night. They failed the roll and just decided to sleep in an old hollowed out tree.
I don’t think I’ve seen any other Exalted characters being brought so low as these two due to just a conflagration of bad things happening at once. It was a really great moment.
Standing up to OPP
Just like Swallows of the South called OPP on some shady things that came to light, so too did Demon City Slickers take a stand against the company. Heck, they did that in their first episode. As always, it’s a commendable stance.
Criticism
No show is without its flaws, and so we should turn to what Demon City Slickers has committed. Not as an attack on the show or its creators, but as a learning experience on how everyone could improve...
Tambourine-assisted rolls
In episode 1, the team decided to roll their dice into a Tambourine for an extra flair. The experience listening to that was comparable to ExalTwitch using glass beads in glass jars for Essence, a very jarring experience. The microphone picked up on the sharp sounds so well the episode was really painful to listen to. Luckily, that idea didn’t make it past episode 1, otherwise this show would’ve been unlistenable…
Post-processing and audio balancing
While the idea of adding music during post-processing was interesting, the execution was a bit spotty at times. The music volume usually ended up a bit too high, distracting from the dialogue. This was especially noticeable when it was combined with a heavy voice modulation in Episode 4. The modulation by itself made the character barely comprehensible, while adding music on top of it made me miss their dialogue entirely. I only learned what they were talking about during the next episode recap.
Mid-episode “ad break”
This one was a weird choice - with one hour episodes the podcast decided to put in some “ad breaks” and talk about things one would usually mention before or after the episode - shout-outs, calls to action, etc. It broke the rhythm of the play a bit unfortunately…
Anachronisms and not taking things seriously
Part of enjoying Exalted is the sword and sandal mythical setting. Unfortunately, that enjoyment can be ruined by bringing things up that don’t really belong in that world, like “a police investigation”, “cab service”, “a god-given right”, “a burrito fast food joint”, or NPCs named “Jerry” and “Smith”. It didn’t help that a good deal of the game revolved around “the police”...
On top of things, there is taking things lightly, and then there is giving mouth-to-mouth and a funeral to some long-dead fish in a fishing warehouse while looking for clues. It’s right up there with Swallows opening the game up with Godwin ripping his pants and possibly soiling himself after some job of cleaning gutters.
But, understandably, sometimes jokes don’t land and that’s the reality of things. I think the show has improved since those incidents…
The missing PC
It was an unfortunate event that Kleefin’s player had to leave the show, and thus Kleefin had to be written up. However, similarly to Swallows, the problem was further aggravated by one of the remaining PCs having an important tie to them and bringing it up a number of times in the coming episode or two. It’s definitely a problematic part of any show where the cast changes without much warning, but bringing attention to it won’t help the situation unfortunately…
Abyssals are common knowledge, but Infernals are a novelty
The game’s primary antagonist was an Abyssal. The fact that they are an Abyssal and what that entails seems to have been a common knowledge among many NPCs (even though that Abyssal seems to have been a new figure in town) - the various cult leaders knew about Abyssals, a random demon knew about them, the PCs seem to know about them too. At the same time, a demon bringing up that Infernals are a thing was treated as a surprise reveal. The difference between how those two splats were handled was a bit jarring.
Conclusions
While it’s unfortunate Demon City Slickers ended rather abruptly, the podcast itself seems to be moving in a good direction. Their most recent project, Dollywood City Slickers, showed that the podcast is improving, so hopefully we will see more fun content from them in the future. As it stands, their Exalted podcast was an okay foray into the game with one or two standout moments.
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