|
If it hadn't gotten to like episode 20 before they decided to cut bait on the original Big Grand Story Covering Five Years (we have covered three months of it) in a show that's only supposed to go 35 or so episodes, I think they could have righted the ship. I think the next campaign needs to start with a somewhat fleshed out setting, a few story threads that could be followed, and generally less of an overall plan. Let the story develop itself over a while, based on what the players do. Even Balance started with a pretty simple and open premise (collect the seven grand relics) with no sense of where the story was going to go. more falafel please fucked around with this message at 07:38 on Feb 19, 2021 |
#
?
Feb 19, 2021 07:35
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 27, 2024 14:05 |
|
|
The thing is none of them are professional Dungeon Masters and I do think Travis has improved markedly over the campaign. Personally I think part of the reason people aren't reacting as well is because they once again went in with a full storyline and established characters rather than in Balance where it organically grew out from a basic d&d module. Amnesty had the same issue. Unfortunately I don't think they're in the same space to really start from a blank slate again, they said they would give the characters more room to grow in graduation but it hasn't felt as natural, it almost feels more like they just planned the character development ahead of time to me. I think they had a good idea with the experimental arcs, but they overdid things by inventing a new world and setting each time. Like just play a couple of DnD modules or whatever just to play around with some characters and spin them off into an original adventure afterwards. Overall my opinion of the Arcs are as follows: Balance: The best one so far. Takes a bit to get going, but the chaptered structure works very well. The characters are the funniest and the emotional payoff at the end is well earned. Amnesty: More dramatic than Balance and less funny in general. I really liked some of the characters, honestly Duck Newton is a better realised character than all three horny boys put together IMO. I dug the monster of the week setting but it was less memorable because it was necessarily more grounded in the real world. The ending did get me on an emotional level but it didn't reach the ridiculous over the top anime high of balance. Graduation: Characters aren't as well drawn as in Amnesty but the tone is more light-hearted and the jokes land better for me. Time will tell if I like it more than Amnesty but probably not unless the ending is spectacular.
|
|
#
?
Feb 19, 2021 08:16
|
|
|
I mean, they are literally professional dungeon masters, in that they get paid to do that
|
|
#
?
Feb 19, 2021 09:17
|
|
|
more falafel please posted:I mean, they are literally professional dungeon masters, in that they get paid to do that
|
|
#
?
Feb 19, 2021 09:28
|
|
|
Like Griffin McElroy is in the top five most famous DMs in the world (I'd probably say top two, but). Not saying they wanted that, but the McElroys literally sell a product that is them running a dungeons and dragons game, and then they sell comic books and merch about it. Travis and Griffin are professional dungeon masters in any sense of the word
|
|
#
?
Feb 19, 2021 10:27
|
|
|
Sivart13 posted:You're only a true Dungeon Master if you come from the dongeon region of France, otherwise you're just a sparkling Garrison Keillor. This is the first time I feel insulted on Travis's behalf.
|
|
#
?
Feb 19, 2021 10:27
|
|
|
Just give us 6 episodes of a Justin campaign. gently caress, call it TAZ: Justin It will probably be awful. I don't care. But by god let blood be spilled (officially) by this entire family on the altar of tabletop gaming.
|
|
#
?
Feb 19, 2021 11:04
|
|
|
Shinjobi posted:Just give us 6 episodes of a Justin campaign. gently caress, call it TAZ: Justin TAZ: Beans
|
|
#
?
Feb 19, 2021 14:06
|
|
|
Shinjobi posted:Just give us 6 episodes of a Justin campaign. gently caress, call it TAZ: Justin 6 episodes of brotherly "You made me do this and I'm gonna make you regret it" TAZ: The Munch Squad
|
|
#
?
Feb 19, 2021 14:36
|
|
|
Deeters posted:6 episodes of brotherly "You made me do this and I'm gonna make you regret it" There's literally a module of the old Ghostbusters RPG revolving around a breakfast cereal conspiracy that would be perfect for this.
|
|
#
?
Feb 19, 2021 14:42
|
|
|
Deeters posted:6 episodes of brotherly "You made me do this and I'm gonna make you regret it" Way ahead of you 
|
|
#
?
Feb 19, 2021 14:47
|
|
|
Justin would total party kill at least once every 10 episodes until someone else gently took the reins from him.
|
|
#
?
Feb 19, 2021 14:49
|
|
|
We already know Justin's DMing capability from TAZ: Elementary, in which he ran Four Sherlock Holmes and a Vampire (Who Is Also One of the Aforementioned Sherlock Holmes)
|
|
#
?
Feb 19, 2021 15:31
|
|
|
Stroop There It Is posted:We already know Justin's DMing capability from TAZ: Elementary, in which he ran Four Sherlock Holmes and a Vampire (Who Is Also One of the Aforementioned Sherlock Holmes) The second best TAZ episode. (Best is the first episode of Rockport Limited where they're actually on the train.)
|
|
#
?
Feb 19, 2021 16:24
|
|
|
I'm slowly listening to Rude Tales and my takeaway so far is that it's more important to just put your players in situations to be funny, rather than trying to do a lot of Grand Worldbuilding up front and weave an elaborate story. Funny trumps all
|
|
#
?
Feb 19, 2021 16:36
|
|
|
AndrewP posted:I'm slowly listening to Rude Tales and my takeaway so far is that it's more important to just put your players in situations to be funny, rather than trying to do a lot of Grand Worldbuilding up front and weave an elaborate story. Funny trumps all Now if they would just roll some dice every now and then... I paused listening to RToM roughly halfway through because it sort of stopped feeling like they were playing DnD after a while. Maybe they are rolling a lot of dice and just cutting that out of the edit, but as a listener it basically just feels like an improvised story with no skill checks. Honestly that’s my main critique of just about every actual play show I listen to: roll more dice! Let chaos reign!! Early TAZ had a great balance of rolling and cutscenes. even if Griffin was going to do what he wanted to do anyways, it didn’t feel all that scripted. Now that I think about this a bit more though, maybe it’s just because TAZ was my first and I wasn’t as familiar with this style of storytelling.
|
|
#
?
Feb 19, 2021 16:51
|
|
|
That doesn’t really bother me but I hear you. I think they goose things a decent bit but it’s hard to tell as they edit our most if not all of the rolling portions. If you ever do one of their live shows it’s a very different vibe.
|
|
#
?
Feb 19, 2021 16:56
|
|
|
Brandon Reese is the personification of chaos what are you talking about?
|
|
#
?
Feb 19, 2021 17:00
|
|
|
they edit the gently caress out of their rolls, like a fifth of them maybe are in the show proper. i also agree that there is zero reason for them to be playing d&d of all fuckin' games for what they're trying to do though lol, i don't really think they've had a single 'fight' in the whole show so far.
|
|
#
?
Feb 19, 2021 17:11
|
|
|
Farg posted:i don't really think they've had a single 'fight' in the whole show so far. this is another reason I like it I guess I basically enjoy funny group improv storytelling with some light dice/game to provide at least a bit of structure. I find audio fights with dice rolling and HP and stuff almost impossible to follow AndrewP fucked around with this message at 17:25 on Feb 19, 2021 |
|
#
?
Feb 19, 2021 17:22
|
|
|
Hello From The Magic Tavern is the best d&d podcast
|
|
#
?
Feb 19, 2021 17:35
|
|
|
It was MaxFun bonus content, but Justin GMed the Lords Of Crunch game they did which was amazing. Lasers and Feelings hacks that you do for a live show one-off are probably a lot easier to manage, though.
|
|
#
?
Feb 19, 2021 21:25
|
|
|
Mr Phillby posted:Unfortunately I don't think they're in the same space to really start from a blank slate again, they said they would give the characters more room to grow in graduation but it hasn't felt as natural, it almost feels more like they just planned the character development ahead of time to me. I think they had a good idea with the experimental arcs, but they overdid things by inventing a new world and setting each time. Like just play a couple of DnD modules or whatever just to play around with some characters and spin them off into an original adventure afterwards. Yeah, agree with all this. Travis is trying to tell an epic and he just doesn't have it to do so yet. A key part of what made balance fantastic was that every arc was just a cool idea realized. The grounds hog day + mining town was rad. Carnival where characters have to make painful choices? Sollllid. Murder mystery on a train? Choo choo! I dropped off of Graduation around ep 15 or so when it became clear it wasn't getting better. He's got a grand plot in mind, but hasn't really thought out how to build to it in an interesting or meaningful way. It's behind a paywall, but will do a shout out for Dimension 20. Brennan Lee Mulligan is a force of nature of a DM. Tiny Heist at least is on Youtube and includes these boys! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l-y98OYaXu8
|
|
#
?
Feb 19, 2021 21:54
|
|
|
Griffin talked about a lot how his process behind Balance was just making arcs based around whatever he'd be watching/playing at the time and then slowly slipping in the wider story until it all exploded at once. Murder on the Rockport Limited was Agatha Christie novels, Petals to the Metal was Fast and the Furious, Crystal Kingdom was Alien, etc etc etc. Also there was a couple of arcs he had planned that just didn't happen due to the party's actions. It probably would have added another six months if they had done the alternate timeline where THB never joined the Bureau or traveling to the Astral Plane to get Magnus' soul back.
|
|
#
?
Feb 19, 2021 22:16
|
|
|
I think the very clearly defined arcs each with their own identity is also something that's lacking from Amnesty and I think Graduation, I can only really speak for Amnesty. Like, there are arcs, but they just kinda mush together.
|
|
#
?
Feb 19, 2021 22:33
|
|
|
I think the Amnesty arcs are pretty well separated. The only difference is its not jumping genres every arc and has a more consistent tone up until the last one.
|
|
#
?
Feb 19, 2021 22:36
|
|
|
I know Griffin says Petals is inspired by f&f but it bears way more resemblance to Fury Road once the car battles start
|
|
#
?
Feb 19, 2021 23:10
|
|
|
The World Inferno posted:Yeah, agree with all this. Travis is trying to tell an epic and he just doesn't have it to do so yet. A key part of what made balance fantastic was that every arc was just a cool idea realized. The grounds hog day + mining town was rad. Carnival where characters have to make painful choices? Sollllid. Murder mystery on a train? Choo choo! yeah if you like taz you owe it to yourself to watch dimension 20 or listen to NADDPOD
|
|
#
?
Feb 19, 2021 23:11
|
|
|
AndrewP posted:this is another reason I like it the dice rolling is necessary to keep the improv honest, it's not group story telling in graduation because no one has agency
|
|
#
?
Feb 20, 2021 01:00
|
|
|
Colonel Whitey posted:I know Griffin says Petals is inspired by f&f but it bears way more resemblance to Fury Road once the car battles start you mean Wacky Races
|
|
#
?
Feb 20, 2021 01:13
|
|
|
I liked Harmonquest a lot I hope that doesn't make me a terrible person.
|
|
#
?
Feb 20, 2021 02:57
|
|
|
Wasabi the J posted:I liked Harmonquest a lot I hope that doesn't make me a terrible person. Harmonquest remains around, which is more than I can say for Friendly Fire
|
|
#
?
Feb 20, 2021 03:03
|
|
|
Nthing the suggestion of Dimension 20. Especially if you're one of those folks annoyed at the lack of rolls in TAZ or Rude Tales. Brennan does an astounding job of balancing using the actual mechanics of rolling while still making things well paced and funny. Only the first episode of Tiny Heist is on Youtube, but all of Fantasy High is on there and it's what I'm currently binging. I'll say Tiny Heist is worth the like 5 bucks for one month of Dropout, as well.
|
|
#
?
Feb 20, 2021 03:50
|
|
|
Poor Miserable Gurgi posted:Nthing the suggestion of Dimension 20. Especially if you're one of those folks annoyed at the lack of rolls in TAZ or Rude Tales. Brennan does an astounding job of balancing using the actual mechanics of rolling while still making things well paced and funny. Fun City isn't bad for Shadowrun, they definitely do a good amount of rolling with the bonus of all the baddies being played by Taylor Moore.
|
|
#
?
Feb 20, 2021 04:55
|
|
|
naddpod is the way
|
|
#
?
Feb 20, 2021 05:22
|
|
|
kidcoelacanth posted:naddpod is the way NAADPOD is definitely the best balance between funny jokes and actual gameplay, I’ve never really felt it become indistinguishable from a radio play like RToM or completely lost in the mechanics for long stretches like Critical Role Honestly I think they should look back into more mechanics light stuff on TAZ. Amnesty didn’t disappoint compared to Balance because of the system, it was because it was way too ambitious while not having enough focus. Trying even another PBTA setting even would be good, and I think what Travis is doing would have worked better with it. They wanna tell a fun story and the game itself is tangential at this point, trying to force it into dnd doesn’t help
|
|
#
?
Feb 20, 2021 08:37
|
|
|
maybe adventure zone would be good if it was still a comedy podcast
|
|
#
?
Feb 20, 2021 08:40
|
|
|
inferis posted:maybe adventure zone would be good if it was still a comedy podcast what
|
|
#
?
Feb 20, 2021 09:08
|
|
|
they will never stop using D&D because they were scared by the viewer drop with Amnesty and are willing to use whatever excuse they can (see Travis' bizarre defense of going back to 5e in the Graduation announcement) to cling to what they view as a reason their podcast is popular.
|
|
#
?
Feb 20, 2021 09:22
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 27, 2024 14:05 |
|
|
I would be remiss if I didn't mention that Dragon Friends has started a new twitch campaign with no prior knowledge of anything necessary so if you are itching for experienced improv comics who have known each other forever play d&d except the DM is super experienced and can deal with their bullshit, I can strongly recommend tuning in. First episode is on twitch at the moment and will be on youtube on Monday, fair warning for twitch at least it takes them nearly half an hour to actually start playing.
|
|
#
?
Feb 20, 2021 09:31
|
|
