• Good group dynamics
• A DM/GM who strives for verisimilitude (particularly at the expense of overdone tropes)
• Players who exhibit some level of system expertise and are engaged in all pillars of gameplay
• Clear audio and good editing to remove the long silences and crosstalk
• GM does creative things in terms of how they run their game that I feel like I can learn from

I’m mostly in the same boat as you. I have tried several times to get into Critical Role since everyone raves about it, plus a few others. It’s not for me. I suppose it’s because I don’t have any emotional connection with the actual play where I would have that investment with my own game. I will say that I did enjoy Dungeons & Daddies though, but that show is more like listening to a comedy podcast about fantasy rather than an actual play.

I find I really need to get over the hump into it feeling like a parasocial relationship, which is kinda a shame. The only time I’ve enjoyed actual plays is when I’ve seen people who I was already fond of from other internet content play, and on top of that, never in a gimmicky setting like a promotion one-shot.

Basically it’s not for the actual play, it’s for living through their friendship, then occasionally the drama of the game spills forth and gives it an extra kick.

It’s story time with dice, so the story tellers don’t know what’s going to happen next, so there are meaningful moments of suspense.

Critical Roll is probably actually a bad example here, because it’s produced and designed as a TV show. Podcasts with reasonably sized episodes can make for good tales that I can listen to in the car or while at the gym.

I enjoyed watching Harmonquest, the episodes of which have parts video of the table and parts animated story. It’s a comedy show, for the most part, which genre appeals to me. Past, that, I enjoy a good actual play podcast, sans video, like BomBARDed or NaDDPod, both of which are also comedic stories.

Just watching a group play a game can indeed be boring. But if that game is just a format for the genre of entertainment you already enjoy, that’s the appeal.

I’m young and although I understand intellectually what people get out of it, I share your sentiment. I can find people telling stories of their fun campaign online, in text, which is faster for me to consume than listening to people talk. These stories do usually just tell the story and scrub out the “because X happened, we take out Y game mechanic and this is how it works”, so I suppose it makes sense to watch a playthrough to get mechanic exposure.

But I just really… don’t have the patience for audio and video when I can usually get what I want by reading a lot faster. I also do not need to make special accommodations to make others happy to read. No dragging headphones with me to avoid bothering the general public, and I keep more awareness of my surroundings when I can hear what is going on.

I share the philosophy of “why watch others do Fun Thing You Enjoy when you could just do Fun Thing You Enjoy yourself?”

I figure I’ll just leave all these videos up for everyone to enjoy. As long as I do not view myself as some superior human being for the very, very elite trait of simply not sharing this interest, it’s perfectly okay for me to not enjoy watching others play TTRPG. People are allowed to find things boring.

I don’t like most of them, but I enjoy Dimension 20 for the creative homebrew settings and funny group dynamics as well as the editing.

I also will occasionally watch an episode of a different actual play if it uses a system I’d like to try out, for instance I was thinking about running Beam Saber for some friends, so I found a one-shot actual play where the GM was the creator of the game. That gave me a strong idea of the intended style of the system and tone of the setting.

I listen to them, the stories can be great, and it’s entertainment. Great for the car

I’ve never enjoyed longform campaign actual plays much either. It’s just not feasible to keep up with, and unless you’re playing, most campaign RPGs have too much bookkeeping to pay attention to. And even as a background listen, which I’m sure is how most people do it, gets dull.

And yet I’ve watched quite a few though. It works only if I enjoy the people playing, their wits etc. I have no chemistry with Critical Roll, Mercer included. But really enjoyed Acquisition Incorporated: C Team.

But these days the only kind of APs I find myself watching and consistently enjoying is faster indie RPG one-shots. In particular, Mystery Quest (YouTube) where Tom runs a one-shot for a rotating cast of friends (all of whom very funny people) each month. No miniatures, barely any rules referencing. The heaviest game they run is CoC, and it never gets in the way! There’s even a “duet” Thousand Year Old Vampire session that went surprisingly well.

Anytime any other podcast or channel I already follow for their humor and chemistry does a one shot I also like to listen. The short ones are always a delight. No fatigue, no fomo. It works.

I don’t think I’d ever even consider watching a campaign AP had I started here. There are just not fun unless you’re in them, playing.

Actual Plays can introduce you to new styles of playing and DMing and improve your skills at the table. For example many people started running planescape campaigns due to Rolling With Difficulty. Before RWD, lots of people had no idea that D&D has spaceships and what is essentially a sci-fi setting. If you’re a GM who wants to get better at running the game, then obviously my first recommendation is Matt Colville’s videos, but try listening to a few different actual plays and learning from the styles of different GMs. Maybe you hate the way Matt Mercer runs the game, but you really like how Brennan Lee Mulligan does it. Maybe you didn’t know it was possible to run the game in a different way than how Matt Mercer does it. If you don’t have three decades of experience playing with diverse tables, then actual plays provide a substitute for that experience.

The only actual play I’ve ever actually found myself enjoying is oxventure, they’re not the best example of a proper actual play though since they usually don’t follow the rules too closely and are more of a fantasy improv group vaguely using 5e rules, sometimes blades in the dark or SWADE Deadlands.

Although I’ve only started listening fairly recently and haven’t gotten up to the Deadlands stuff yet.

viva la dirt league just has a funny jovial atmosphere if that counts. To bad about the game system they use but thats life.