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grittyreboot posted:I ran into the same problem when I ran my first homebrew campaign. it sucks to see him work out his rookie mistakes on a public stage, for him and the audience. Griffin had some experience and is/has been a professional writer. Rude Tales of Magic did an entire campaign off-mic before even trying to do a podcast. but I can't imagine they'd have had time for Travis to do the same thing
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Apr 15, 2021 19:13
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Empty Sandwich posted:it sucks to see him work out his rookie mistakes on a public stage, for him and the audience. Griffin had some experience and is/has been a professional writer. Rude Tales also had an experienced DM who had a setting, but isn't married to it. Being willing to change poo poo because it's better entertainment or just more fun based off your players actions is just more effective. Travis just wouldn't let stuff happen.
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Apr 15, 2021 19:21
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He could've run something with friends before that, even just to test his working to see if his Hero/Villain thing could work the way he expected. I do feel bad for sure. He got so much advice going in from people and just kinda swung too hard when he got up to bat. I hope this doesn't dissuade him from trying again in the future.
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Apr 15, 2021 19:22
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The thing you have to keep in mind is that TTRPGs are collaborative storytelling. What made Balance so interesting is how the details and “truth” of the story and world is directly derived from the bits and pieces that each player brings to the table and the natural organic growth outwards from that. Travis just kinda told everyone else at the table to gently caress off and did his own thing. No wonder it sucked. Trying to replicate Balance ensures that you will fail. Do not try to make an RPG campaign, grow it.
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Apr 15, 2021 19:24
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Pollyanna posted:The thing you have to keep in mind is that TTRPGs are collaborative storytelling. What made Balance so interesting is how the details and “truth” of the story and world is directly derived from the bits and pieces that each player brings to the table and the natural organic growth outwards from that. Travis just kinda told everyone else at the table to gently caress off and did his own thing. No wonder it sucked. Balance is pretty much going to be the magnum opus for whatever TAZ does. And it hurts when your first project is the best. You got to balance not trying to copy it again but at the same time deal with disappointed feedback when your next thing isn't Magnum Opus II. Travis's shorter campaigns and one-shots are good. He was under a lot of pressure and handled it badly.
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Apr 15, 2021 19:32
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Apr 15, 2021 19:44
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I ran Waterdeep: Dragon Heist for a group of friends and we were out the gates playing stupid characters trying to get a job. It ended with the party pulling off a heist to kill the villain and they cried when they saved the city from a big crime network then spent their days running a tavern enterprise. I ran Curse of Strahd with the plan to be really scary and the party members did whatever they could to piss off Strahd and the other villains including screaming 'HEY BABA LYSAGA EAT MY rear end!' again and again in the woods. This post holds true.
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Apr 15, 2021 19:49
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Wow. This could have been written specifically for TAZ.
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Apr 15, 2021 19:49
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The first thing that happens in this finale is travis literally gives them new character sheets with new powers he created for them like gently caress me running Debating whether I want to hate-listen to this now that it’s over. Part of why I dropped it in the early going was for how loving boring it was but that was before it started to become entertainingly bad, maybe that can sustain me. It also just feels weird to not be caught up on what used to be my favorite podcast!
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Apr 15, 2021 20:04
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I haven't listened to a second of Graduation, I'm certain the good faith criticisms of the campaign are correct, and know that there are many valid criticisms of Travis himself, but I can't help but be bummed that it sounds like such a big, slow, wet fart because Travis is actually a pretty competent and funny improvisor when he's on and it just all sounds so disappointing.
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Apr 15, 2021 20:14
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I have not followed Graduation since I fell out early in but I was hoping he wasn't going for some big superpowered battle as a finale. Are they up against a single antagonist? Or is it a whole army? It's the habit of things (especially a game that was specifically made to fight big monsters) but seeing it nowadays just gives me that Avengers: Endgame/Rise of Skywalker vibe of throwing everything and the kitchen sink at each other to show the high stakes of everything. Balance did the same thing in the end but paced it a lot better and treated it as a final step in character development and evolution for Tres Horny Boys (and I still think the 'two food trucks explode' scene is absolutely awesome). Since then, it's been kind of exhausting. DesertIslandHermit fucked around with this message at 20:18 on Apr 15, 2021 |
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Apr 15, 2021 20:15
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All you need to know about graduation is that someone made up a character in a character guide on Reddit and it instantly became the most popular one with the most fan art.
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Apr 15, 2021 20:23
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I really liked the Graduation finale. It was funny, the epilogues were sweet and made sense for the characters, and the combat that makes up the bulk of the episode was fun and pretty well-executed. The new character sheets they got weren't replacements, they were additional, and given the tone of the combat (basically a big triumphant extravaganza) it felt fine to give the heroes some cool new powers to use for a single session.
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Apr 15, 2021 20:25
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i will never empathize with Kennick
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Apr 15, 2021 20:26
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DesertIslandHermit posted:I have not followed Graduation since I fell out early in but I was hoping he wasn't going for some big superpowered battle as a finale. Are they up against a single antagonist? Or is it a whole army? It's the habit of things (especially a game that was specifically made to fight big monsters) but seeing it nowadays just gives me that Avengers: Endgame/Rise of Skywalker vibe of throwing everything and the kitchen sink at each other to show the high stakes of everything. They're up against Order, two dragons, and "like a thousand" hellhounds who are statted as one creature with a gazillion HP. Combat still isn't Travis' strong suit but it's a more dynamic combat encounter than pretty much any other in the campaign. More than anything, it's funny and energetic and doesn't plod.
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Apr 15, 2021 20:27
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https://twitter.com/drmmm00/status/1382682893881851906?s=20
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Apr 15, 2021 20:38
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scopes posted:Travis is actually a pretty competent and funny improvisor when he's on seaborgium posted:
yeah, exactly. even in the beginning, when they were doing the module, Griffin said something like "you weren't supposed to get [to the caves] until level 5." Travis asked if they'd messed things up, and he said "no, absolutely not." Travis's style might not work for any kind of structured game, which, like... all the better. play some weird poo poo. play a series of minigames. play a stream-of-consciousness game. use Troika! rules. (scholar's disclaimer: I have never actually played Troika!.)
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Apr 15, 2021 20:39
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I thought Dust was cool
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Apr 15, 2021 20:48
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SpacePig posted:Man, I'm not gonna comment one way or the other on the TAZ episode, as I haven't listened, but this teaser clip is nothing. What an adventure. lmao is this some kind of ironic meta-teaser
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Apr 15, 2021 20:50
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Ainsley McTree posted:I thought Dust was cool Travis's DMing works when he does really short stuff because there's less to build and it's easier to push players towards the direction you want them to be in when the story ends in 4 episodes or less.
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Apr 15, 2021 20:57
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It’s quite telling how this is a TAZ finale and not a whole lot of people are talking about it on Twitter.
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Apr 15, 2021 21:01
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Lots of good visual gags in this final battle, too bad we'll never see this arc adapted into any visual medium.
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Apr 15, 2021 21:12
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Ainsley McTree posted:I thought Dust was cool It was but whodunnits are so hard to do in tabletop RPGs. I feel like if you present ambiguous information to players they'll somehow convince themselves that the chef is secretly an incarnation of Kyuss, at which point you have to scramble to make that actually be the case because it's way better than what you had written.
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Apr 15, 2021 21:12
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Ainsley McTree posted:I thought Dust was cool
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Apr 15, 2021 21:22
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It's been a while since I listened to Dust, from what I remember he set up a whole whodunnit, the PCs went down a bunch of rabbit holes that ended up being red herrings, and then Travis just gave them a note that said "Bingus did it" and then they wrapped up. Obviously they had limited time to wrap it up, but you can just make poo poo up! You're running out of time and your players think it must have been Scrumbus? Ok, yup, it was Scrumbus, let's RP to figure out how that happened and how you figure it out.
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Apr 15, 2021 21:33
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C-Euro posted:Lots of good visual gags in this final battle, too bad we'll never see this arc adapted into any visual medium. Griffin's non-character voice cracked me the gently caress up. What a great bit.
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Apr 15, 2021 21:34
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Boy I hope they move back to DnD for the next campaign.
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Apr 15, 2021 21:42
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Warbird posted:Boy I hope they move back to DnD for the next campaign. I don’t, I think D&D is a bit of a lovely system. If you thought Graduation sucked because of bogged down battles, well, that’s D&D’s entire thing. The McElroys are good at goofs and improv, the system they use should serve to further those impulses, not distract from it. Remember that D&D was directly derived from number-crunchy wargames. Edit: Also, not sure if this is a bit - Graduation was D&D.
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Apr 15, 2021 21:45
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Warbird posted:Boy I hope they move back to DnD for the next campaign. 
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Apr 15, 2021 21:52
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Android Blues posted:I really liked the Graduation finale. It was funny, the epilogues were sweet and made sense for the characters, and the combat that makes up the bulk of the episode was fun and pretty well-executed. Sure, my beef’s not really with giving them powers, it just sounds to me like another example of Travis being kind of a controlling DM who can’t roll with the punches. He gave them specific powers and built the encounter around those instead of letting them make potentially surprising choices. Like, Balance ended with them getting to use the bond engine to do powerful Final Fantasy summons but they got to choose basically whatever characters they wanted from all the NPCs they met The little bit I’ve read about it does make it sound passably fun though, maybe I’ll just listen to that one and say gently caress it. Froghammer posted:Dust's system of "beats" as an abstract measurement of time where the party can cover more ground (and unearth more clues) by splitting up but are purposefully exposing themselves to danger while doing so is brilliant, I've used it in a bunch of games since, and that's poo poo's 100% Travis. Re: Travis giving the players powers and different mechanics, that’s one of the things that bummed me out about the 1/3 or so of grad I listened to. He sets up some kinda neat sounding mechanics of having to rent magic items and making money while on missions and taking blame for heroes and then dispenses with them immediately. I agree that’s a cool one, and suitably complex for a short campaign, I have to wonder if he’d have stuck with it in a longer Dust Warbird posted:Boy I hope they move back to DnD for the next campaign. I’d say I want them to do a pbta game again but then I’ll get to spend another campaign getting nerd frustrated at the assbackwards way Griffin does actions and hard moves
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Apr 15, 2021 21:57
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have they considered just doing an improv storytelling podcast
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Apr 15, 2021 22:03
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misadventurous posted:Like, Balance ended with them getting to use the bond engine to do powerful Final Fantasy summons but they got to choose basically whatever characters they wanted from all the NPCs they met Magnus summoned a PC from a different game! It was rad as hell.
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Apr 15, 2021 22:08
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Pollyanna posted:Edit: Also, not sure if this is a bit - Graduation was D&D. It’s a bit buddy, don’t worry.
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Apr 15, 2021 22:09
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Alaois posted:have they considered just doing an improv storytelling podcast Seriously. I think if the 4 of them work together and get a slate of guests, they could probably do something on the level of Mission to Zyxx or Magic Tavern. Just have some silly story fun without having to ground it in a system.
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Apr 15, 2021 22:10
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SpacePig posted:Seriously. I think if the 4 of them work together and get a slate of guests, they could probably do something on the level of Mission to Zyxx or Magic Tavern. Just have some silly story fun without having to ground it in a system. That or having someone outside of the family DM
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Apr 15, 2021 22:13
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SpacePig posted:Seriously. I think if the 4 of them work together and get a slate of guests, they could probably do something on the level of Mission to Zyxx or Magic Tavern. Just have some silly story fun without having to ground it in a system. A Magic Tavern setting where the boys are successful and retired adventurers giving adventuring and life advice to new heroes while also trying to profitably operate a restaurant with limited profit margins thats owned by 4 family members would be good as hell.
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Apr 15, 2021 22:18
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AfterMASH, but it's the Tres Horny
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Apr 15, 2021 22:32
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The super lightweight types of systems they’ve used for live one-offs work pretty well imo, adds a fun random improv element without them getting bogged down in the least interesting part of the show for them. I don’t know how well that’d work for a longer campaign, but uhh I also don’t think they really need to do a long epic campaign every time alternatively, make them try to play literally any edition of shadowrun misadventurous fucked around with this message at 22:35 on Apr 15, 2021 |
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Apr 15, 2021 22:32
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Alaois posted:have they considered just doing an improv storytelling podcast This seems like the best direction. I personally think that a lot of what made Balance work was that it was barely a D&D podcast. The rules and systems were part of an improv prompt rather than something they adhered to. While Tres Horny Boys famously forgot about most of their magic items, I can't imagine them getting anything like the Ring of the Gramarrian or any of the other "free pass to gently caress this scene up" items in nesty or Graduation. Democratic Pirate posted:A Magic Tavern setting where the boys are successful and retired adventurers giving adventuring and life advice to new heroes while also trying to profitably operate a restaurant with limited profit margins thats owned by 4 family members would be good as hell. Unsurprisingly there is, in fact, a TTRPG for this. Grunch Worldflower fucked around with this message at 22:49 on Apr 15, 2021 |
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Apr 15, 2021 22:33
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misadventurous posted:Sure, my beef’s not really with giving them powers, it just sounds to me like another example of Travis being kind of a controlling DM who can’t roll with the punches. He gave them specific powers and built the encounter around those instead of letting them make potentially surprising choices. Like, Balance ended with them getting to use the bond engine to do powerful Final Fantasy summons but they got to choose basically whatever characters they wanted from all the NPCs they met I definitely think the finale's a cut above your average Graduation episode and you don't need a tonne of context for it to make sense. It might be worth a listen if you're interested in seeing how the campaign ended. I completely agree with your issues with the front end of Graduation - it felt like there were a cocktail of things going on. Travis had built a vast school setting and was kind of expecting his players to seek out the plot on their own, and they were used to more structured adventures so broadly they didn't, and he didn't know how to prod them along and keep the pace steady. Then, yeah, there were a bunch of plot points and mechanics that were introduced, used once, and then never brought up again when it became clear they weren't really working for anybody. I do think it gets better generally in the home stretch - the overarching plot is still not much to write home about, but the heist arc is fun, and the final two episodes have much better pacing because it feels like Travis is finally ready to let things happen instead of foreshadowing them or buffeting the heroes away from them before danger can occur. I feel like a bunch of the campaign's pacing issues are down to the fact that there's a final confrontation in mind and instead of parcelling out the information necessary to build up that confrontation in a series of smaller conflicts, it's mostly just exposition, a hint of danger, and then a return to safety before there's a chance of the players screwing up the plot by failing. Once that's no longer a concern it feels like he can just run a D&D fight.
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Apr 15, 2021 22:35
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