Emily Axford, of Not Another D&D Podcast, College Humor (now Dropout), and Dimension 20 fame, “gets” roleplaying in a really solid way. Anyone out there who wants to dial in to tabletop or improv should really seek her stuff out.
Check out this quote, from NADDPOD’s D&D Court series:
“This is not a medium where you plan out what happens, this is a medium where you collaborate and find out what happens.”
This is from the March 28th, 2024 episode, and it’s about 27 minutes in. The case they’re talking about is concerning a character who tried to make an edgy character that didn’t play well with the rest of the group, eventually leading to the character’s unfortunate rolling and death.
It was clear that the player had some kind of story in mind for their character and they were trying to push that story, but that just doesn’t work in group storytelling. The collaboration is the thing, fed by random chance through the dice.
Even now, here I am trying to articulate it and I’m spending entire paragraphs laying it out. Emily, though, she’s the sort that gets it so well she can belt out one-liners like the above.
Again, highly recommend checking her work out!