FFRelay Commentary Rules + Advice

FF Relay commentary

HARD RULES (You may be pulled from commentary for breaking these):
- Keep it PG-13. No excessive swearing, no excesive lewd references or jokes, just generally keep it clean.
- If you do swear, don't bring attention to it, just carry on.
- Any divisive commentary at all is off limits, including but not limited to: racism, misogyny, misandry, LGBT, politics, religion, mental health in a negative light.
- Try not to reference Coronavirus, especially not as a joke.
- Violating the guidelines will escalate from us pinging you in the game channel to warn over it, to taking you out of the channel to verbally warn, to muting you for the remainder of the game.

SOFT RULES:
- When 2 games are playing at the same time, let the game that's finishing take priority. There will be plenty of time to cover things later on when they happen again.
- In general, the runners are not expected to contribute to commentary. Try to avoid asking for their input where possible outside of maybe specific decisions they just made, especially if they are still in a battle/menu etc.
- Try not to talk over each other. Please listen to your co-commentators and allow people to speak relatively evenly where possible. If you are a louder type person, please try to be concious if you are commentating with a quieter person.
- If you answer a question from chat please repeat the question out loud first for context, as the relay will be uploaded to youtube without chat so that context would be lost.
- Please don’t slander or insult the games or the speedruns. Bad things happen, and it's just part of these runs. Try to make light of it where possible, or potentially take the opportunity to highlight the recovery over the mistake. If anything we want to encourage people to get involved with these games in the future, and showing them in a negative light is only going to hurt that.
- Do not "moderate" the chat by voice. Please ping both @management and @helpers on Discord if there are any issues that aren't being dealt with. You should only have to be commentating, so please let the mods handle the work.

ADVICE:
If commentary is especially quiet and you're really stuck, here are some additional conversational pointers:
- Remember to introduce yourselves after the games switch over. For long games, it can be worth doing this multiple times.
- Take the opportunity to promote speedrunning, and your game's community. Talk about how to get involved, any guides or tutorials newer runners can use. Perhaps share your story on how you got started and your experiences. You can also ask your co-commentators to share their experiences.
- Shout out any other events or big races coming up for your game. For example tournaments, GDQ, or RPGLB itself.
- If you notice that one person isn't saying much and you think you're talking too much then try asking them if they want to explain something (e.g. boss strat, what you're looking for in a menu, etc.)
- Talk about the history of the game and the speedrunning route. What were the latest improvements, and what was the run like 5 or 10 years ago? How many people ran the game, and are they still active?
- Talk about other versions of the game and any notable differences. If they're "bad" versions, say why they're bad for speedrunning (e.g. slow loads). If they're completely different, try to explain anything you know about the strat differences and why the strats have to be different
- Talk about other categories of the game and the strats employed
- Talk about the music from the game (or series), what are your favourite songs?
- If you're really desperate... Best/worst FF. HOWEVER, be cautious with "worst" in particular. Try to instead make this subjective "Most liked/least liked", in your opinion.
- Talk about other FF speedruns, your favourite FF speedruns and why.
- Talk about the event itself! Upcoming games you're looking forward to or what you'd recommend watching
- Above all, don't worry if it's quiet! It's okay for there to be quiet moments, you don't need to force yourself or other people to talk.