Streaming WorldAnvil

Hello Anvilites! Heffé here.
So, you've decided you want to light up your streams with some hot World Anvil action. That is awesome! This guide is to mostly suggest a few things to do and use when you're streaming World Anvil.
None of these tips is gospel or a 'you must do them'. No, we're not here to dictate what you do for your streams. This article is to help inspire you to do things for your stream to make it better for you and to encourage you.
So, feel free to take on board all some, or even none of the ideas this article presents. Remember, at the end of the day, your streams are yours; so you be you.

Table of Contents

1. Captures: What are they and which one to use.
2. Plan: "I love it when a plan comes together."
3. Commands: A list of handy commands to have on your streams.
4. Share: Sharing is caring, and Chat loves it!
5. Have fun!: A constant tip for everything in life, but especially streaming.

Captures

A Capture is basically the 'virtual camera' to, well, capture stuff to show on stream. In this Triple Threat Battle Royale, OBS has 3 captures; Game, Screen and Window. The Game Capture is primarily used for capturing Video Games (like Stream Raiders), which wouldn't work to capture your Browser; and if it does, don't, the Capture has a whole bunch of features you won't need and will cause Bloat.
So now with the Game Capture thrown out of the ring, this leaves us with 2 types of captures!

Window Capture versus Screen Capture

Firstly, what are they and their differences:

Window Capture

Screen Capture

Captures a single Window

Does exactly what it says on the tin. You can set this to only capture your Browser.

Captures the whole monitor.

Everything? Yes, everything. What you see is what they'll get.

And that's basically it. So which one to choose?
Well, you can have a little play around and see for yourself. While you're setting up your scene, experiment with the two captures and see which is best for you. Think of it as a rehearsal, or even actually rehearse; as practice makes perfect at the end of the day.
I recommend the Window Capture, as this would allow you to open up other programs in the background without disrupting the stream. This will also increase your privacy too. Perhaps you have things on your computer which you don't want the world to know about. With the window capture, you can control & limit what your audience will see, by only capturing that window.
You can also resize your browser window, crop the capture to snip off the tabs on top and fit it around any overlays you may have. Yes, you could also crop the screen capture to only see your browser, but you will need to make sure your browser goes back to that same position AND nothing gets displayed over it.

If you choose to use the Window Capture, I recommend installing a neat little tool called Sizer. (Caution, the link is not https; if that is something you're concerned about; however I've had no issues so far. It is also Windows Only, sorry Mac and Linux users)
Sizer is a tool in which you can save Window sizes and positions. It is great if you want that pixel-perfect size to fit WA with your fancy overlays.

I will say, though, if you have multiple monitors, you can use one monitor as the 'stage' of your stream and Screen Capture that. This tackles one drawback Window Capture has, which is it only captures one window. So with the Screen Capture, all you need to do is drag the window onto that stream. Whereas capturing multiple windows with Window Capture, you'll need multiple Window Captures on your OBS Canvas, risking Bloat.

Bloat - What does this mean, exactly?

Okay, so I've mentioned (and tool tipped) the word Bloat, but what do I mean by this? Well, bloat is the term I like to use to describe when your OBS scene and your computer is running so many things all at once, that it lags your computer and stream. Depending on your computer and internet speeds (both upload & download) you can run more programs and apps, and still, be fine. However, I'd still say in this case less means more.
Tl;dr its what I'm calling that kind of lag which is caused by having too many things running that your PC/Mac can handle; like too many widgets on your scene, too many programs running and too many tabs open in your Browser.

How to fix/prevent bloat?

The less your PC/Mac needs to do during your streams, the better.
It all boils down to what you need to show on your stream; start with the bare minimum, stream with that and slowly build it up to gauge what you can handle. I like bullet points so here's a list of ways to prevent Bloat

• Start with the bare minimum of what you need:
• Screen/window capture to show World Anvil
• Microphone and/or Audio -- though silent streams are doable, having at least one kind of audio is needed; whether it's nice relaxing stream-friendly music, or better, your wonderful voice.
• Have fewer programs running at the same time - Only run what you need.
• Clear your browser tabs - as tabs do use up system resources. Bookmark them if you need to keep the links for later use.
• Hardware or PC upgrade - Having a better computer to stream does help a lot; it is expensive, so this would be the last resort.

An extention to the Bare Minimum point

Of course, all of our needs are different. There's also two sides to this; the technical bare minimum and your bare minimum. The technical is what I've suggested already, as they're the things to get you functional; however, there might be other things you need like an onscreen timer because you host writing sprints.
This will tie in well with the Planning stage of your streams, in the Plan section below; as you can load up the programs you need and the OBS Scene Features/Widgets you need to do what you need to do.
My suggestion is to make a list of what you want on your stream, and then another list of all of the things you will need to do that. Like, a program for the sprint timers, browser capture for writing/reading articles, maybe something else to play some music in the background; all are just a few examples, it is up to you to decide on what you need.
Remember you can always add more things if you think your computer can handle them. So start small, and grow.

Plan

A tip easy to neglect, but planning out your streams is always a good idea.
Some of us can stream from the heat of our seats forges, however, many struggle with improvisation; especially if the chat is empty and there is very little to go by. Writers have a question, 'pantser or plotter?' and I'd say streamers ought to ask the same question. There are many ways we can all do this. Of course, at the end of the day, it is up to you how you plan for your streams; however, I like lists so here's a list of ideas, suggestions and advice.

Keep it simple

Whether you're just starting or a veteran streamer, keep your plans simple. If you make them overcomplicated, you can stall yourself when you're confused or when things don't go as planned. This leads me to the next tip.

Plan B, maybe C

Have more than one plan; in case one plan doesn't go as you expected and you need a quick shift. Technical difficulties can and will occur, so make up a few backup plans. Again, don't over plan, in fact...

Don't worry

When things don't go to plan, that is often a good thing. Sometimes your Chat likes that, especially if they're engaged. If not, that's fine too and improvisation is a skill anyone can learn.

Guideline

A plan is there as a guideline, not a rule. It is there to help you stay on track of your original goals, whilst also prompt you when you've hit a dead-end. You don't need to be so absolute with the plan, like "I will write for 30 minutes precisely," as chances are that won't happen and you'll feel bad about it.

I'd suggest to, again, keep your plans short and simple. Try not to get too excited and shove everything into one stream. You can easily overload yourself and burn out.

What to plan for?

There are many things you can plan for.

Content

What are you going to do for this stream? Writing an article? Reading other people's articles? Both? List the things you want to do and how.

Prepare with ideas ahead of time

This is mostly for when you're going to write an article or create something for WorldAnvil on stream. It is easy to say "I'm going to write a new city in my stream; and I'll come up with ideas on stream and Chat will help me." Honestly, I say that every time, and even though chat can help, forming ideas whilst you're streaming is difficult and can lead to you stalling. So, before you stream, perhaps days in advance, brainstorm the article or thing you're going to write. If new ideas spring up on stream, then that's good too; however, from brainstorming ahead of time, you're prepared for when ideas run dry.

Structure & Flow

imagine how your stream is going to be structured and the order in which you present your content. So for reading and writing, you can read when someone shares or submits their link via a channel reward, but you can also dedicate time (or even a whole different stream) for that. Like "in the last hour, I'll start reading the article's chat has submitted." Remember, you do what works best for you, not chat (sorry chat).

Watch other streamers

In other words, research! Yes, watch and enjoy them, but ask yourself "why do you enjoy them?" and begin to analyse what they do. Don't copy them, but perhaps pick certain aspects you could emulate yourself. I know I've picked up a few tricks here and there just by watching others. Also, for the veterans, don't be disheartened someone is doing the same as you; as they could've been inspired by you, which is awesome.

Chat Commands

CMDs to Run

Some ideas for commands (CMDs) to have on your stream. Read your bot's documentation and guides on how to add these commands into your bot; as these are just ideas.

Moderation Commands

Shoutout

A useful command to shoutout raiders and other streamer friends. Example: "!so heffelive" outputs something like, "check out heffelive at twitch.tv/heffelive"

Information Commands

!world

To share the link to your world on World Anvil. Perhaps the most useful informational command to have as, well, you want Chat to know where they can read and follow your world, right?

!article

This may need some prep before stream or some tweaking on the fly, but you could use this command to share the link to the article you're writing; assuming it is published and public - You can also use this to share the latest article you've made or even the challenge article

!challenge

An alternative command to share your challenge entry article. You can either, or also, use this command to share the link to the challenge page on World Anvil; so anyone new to World Anvil in your chat can learn more and join in too.

!summercamp and !worldember

Come on Anvilites, do these commands need explaining? ... Use these to share the hype for Summer Camp and to remind everyone; WorldEmber is coming!

Fun Commands

!hug

Allow chatters to send hugs to each other

!lurk & !unlurk

Allow chatters to state if they're afk or something like that.

!roll

For the tabletop roleplayers, output a random number between 1-20... or 0-9.. or whichever range based on the Tabletop RPG system you like.

Chat Bot Commands are fun! Not only to enter and see the bot do things at the whim of Chat, but they're fun to tinker with and to get working. However, too much of a good thing can actually be bad for you. So how does one handle chatbots for streaming World Anvil entertaining, yet also very useful?
How to implement these commands are not in the scope of this guide. I suggest looking at the documentation of the bot you're using and find guides specific to those bots, as each one is different (though have very similar features). I'd like to discuss the commands more abstractly, with theory from experience which you can implement yourself.
Firstly, what are commands? They're the things which you or chat can enter, like !world which the bot could respond with a link to your world on World Anvil. In other words, you enter a Command and the bot will respond based on that command. The !world command is one simple example of a command, however, there are others like !hug <user> where <user> is replaced with the mention of a person's username in chat like "!hug heffe". The <user> part is known as a Parameter, or Argument; which many bots can detect and you can do things with.
So now we know what commands are, what can we do with them? Well, anything really, though rather than going nuts and create commands for everything; let's put some thought into it. I put commands into three types/categories; Moderation, Information and Fun.

Moderation Commands

These are the commands which only you and your moderators should use. These include the timeout, kick and ban commands for naughty chatters, but there are others too. Like, commands to initiate raids, to change the stream title and category, as well as any other commands which extensions use.

Information Commands

The kind of commands which you can use for frequent information you share; like links to your world and social media. These are useful commands to have, especially as it saves you from finding the URL to copy and paste it each time the topic comes up.

Fun Commannds

Literally as it says on the tin; these commands are for FUN! These are commands which aren't really necessary, but it can boost some chat engagements. There is a risk they can be spammed, so be wary of what commands you allow. A nice simple example is the !lurk command which people often use to let you know, they're either AFK or they're doing something with you in their background.

Share

Sharing is caring and streaming World Anvil gives us streamers and Chat a great opportunity to share. Sharing is part of the streaming experience, right?
For of all, Chat loves to help and share their ideas. We all do, to be fair which is why we're creators. In fact, most people who watch you are often creators too. So don't be afraid to tap into their minds too. Ask them questions and let them get involved in your worldbuilding if you are writing live. Most of my best ideas were from Chat.

Showcasing

Of course, this is optional, but perhaps one of the most popular things you can do while streaming is read chat's articles.
Have you had your article read on a live stream before? If so, how did that make you feel? Nervous, yes; but afterwards I'm going to assume you felt good afterwards; right? You've gotten good feedback, a whole bunch of spelling and grammar mistakes to correct and a dozen ideas to hammer the anvil with.
I encourage you- no, I dare you to be that streamer who reads someone's article on your live stream and give them constructive feedback which inspires them, motivates them and lights up their forge.

Ways to Showcase

Channel Points

Create and enable channel rewards that your viewers can redeem for you to read an article. Whatever points price you set is up to you, but it is a good way to encourage viewers to stay and watch.

Whole stream or partial?

Again, this is up to you. At the end of the day, it is your stream. Some of us dedicate a whole Livestream to read & showcase submitted works. Others dedicate a later half, or they read the articles as they come. You do what's best for you.

Have fun!

I think this ought to go without saying, but I want to leave this article on a high note. Also as a reminder and to nudge you.
Have fun!
I don't only wish you'd have fun, but I also mean you should show it and be genuine. If sitting back and chilling is your fun, that's fine too.
I say to be weary on how you'd present yourself, as we human beings (yes, I'm assuming your humanity) are social creatures on so many levels. Our emotions radiate and spread. Quite often our feelings are directed based on how others are feeling. So let's use this.
Get yourself excited, stay positive and smile. We all have our off days, I completely understand that and if you really aren't feeling up to it, you can always cancel your stream and try again another day.
Treat your live stream as the show that it is, a show. Prepare yourself ahead of time, physically and mentally; then press that Go Live button and have fun as it's showtime! When you're having fun, the audience is having fun too.