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Travis is a real piece of poo poo
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Nov 4, 2023 18:48
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And also he makes a weird face in photos!!!
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Nov 4, 2023 19:12
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Watching TAZ play BitD was super interesting to me from a design perspective. There's always a gap between how a system exists in a rulebook vs how people actually use it, and getting to see that gap in practice from the outside was actually pretty illuminating. I was a huge fan of the whole "position and effect" mechanic when I first heard it, but some of its weaknesses really show through here, like in how they spend time negotiating the effect of almost every roll despite effect not really meaning anything when you don't have a clock in play, or how they more or less completely ignored injury effects (because they are genuinely pretty debilitating RAW). Like, you could say that it's just because they're playing the system wrong, but that's kind of the point--it's really interesting to see which parts of a system survive the transition to actual play and which get lost.
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Nov 4, 2023 21:37
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On the other hand, the mcelroys playing an rpg is like the old stories of Valve bringing in playtesters who couldnt figure out how to jump in Half-Life Or someone writing a review of Nier where he gave it a bad score because he didnt know how to follow the minimap to a sidequest objective lol Alaois fucked around with this message at 21:42 on Nov 4, 2023 |
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Nov 4, 2023 21:40
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Justin constantly asking for specific rolls and then struggling to think up a consequence is completely the wrong way around - you only call for a roll if there's some interesting complication based on what's happening in the scene, not because you want to gate success behind a challenge. It's less what they didn't carry across from the books IMO, and more what they failed to understand. They were still trying to play D&D, just using a slightly different shape of rules without bothering to understand how or why it should be played differently.
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Nov 4, 2023 22:15
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I blame Clint McElroy for cocreating the brothers and causing such defective play of tabletop games
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Nov 4, 2023 22:52
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Woof woof, TravNation!
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Nov 4, 2023 23:09
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I like the TravNation gimmick
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Nov 4, 2023 23:25
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Shinjobi posted:And also he makes a weird face in photos!!! one time he complimented his friend in a way I didn't approve of
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Nov 5, 2023 00:13
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Alaois posted:On the other hand, the mcelroys playing an rpg is like the old stories of Valve bringing in playtesters who couldnt figure out how to jump in Half-Life I've known at least three people who rage quit Nier at that exact same spot because they, too, were too dumb to follow the quest marker on the map like they've been doing for the entire game up to that point. They are weak.
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Nov 5, 2023 02:08
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Original NieR didn’t highlight where you had to go very well. Theres a lot of criticisms of the McElroys, and most of them are legitimate, but that was a poorly signposted section of the game.
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Nov 5, 2023 02:13
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NieR Occomata posted:Original NieR didn’t highlight where you had to go very well. Theres a lot of criticisms of the McElroys, and most of them are legitimate, but that was a poorly signposted section of the game. it literally puts a trail of footprints on your map leading to where you need to go
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Nov 5, 2023 02:19
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Captain_Person posted:Justin constantly asking for specific rolls and then struggling to think up a consequence is completely the wrong way around - you only call for a roll if there's some interesting complication based on what's happening in the scene, not because you want to gate success behind a challenge. yeah. i dunno why they keep trying to use different systems when its clear they just want to use the bones of D&D to tell their story each time.
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Nov 5, 2023 03:39
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Pladdicus posted:one time he complimented his friend in a way I didn't approve of Let's put him in minecraft Permanently
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Nov 5, 2023 04:15
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NieR Occomata posted:Original NieR didn’t highlight where you had to go very well. Theres a lot of criticisms of the McElroys, and most of them are legitimate, but that was a poorly signposted section of the game. There was literally a red X or something on the map. The exact same red X that showed up on the map over every NPC or other quest location you had been going to thus far in the game, it told you exactly where to go to fish, and if you failed to fish at that spot 3 times the game gave you the fish. A lot of people didn't check their map, didn't read the NPC dialogue who told you to go over to that beach, fished at the spot right next to the NPC and got mad.
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Nov 5, 2023 08:37
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Alaois posted:it literally puts a trail of footprints on your map leading to where you need to go No it doesn’t. It places a red circle on the map, which itself was handwritten and has a weird perspective where it’s hard to figure out exactly where it wants you to stand, especially when the actual fishing spot is near the outside of the circle.
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Nov 5, 2023 09:01
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I did not have that particular issue when I played NIER so I guess I'm just a better, stronger, and more handsome video game player than the McElroys.
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Nov 5, 2023 15:31
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I don't think the majority of the McElroy listenership would be interested in a "bad" ending of a TAZ season. The closest they've come to that was the player character death in Amnesty and having to shoehorn in a nobody NPC for the final arc felt really awkward.
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Nov 5, 2023 20:48
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NieR Occomata posted:No it doesn’t. It places a red circle on the map, which itself was handwritten and has a weird perspective where it’s hard to figure out exactly where it wants you to stand, especially when the actual fishing spot is near the outside of the circle. It's a huge beach. The LP that Dark Id did goes over the whole thing pretty well there's a warning for some r-word usage in that update, but like; the game guides you pretty explicitly to where you need to go. And yes this has been stuck in my craw for literal decades.
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Nov 6, 2023 07:17
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https://www.polygon.com/23943739/taylor-lautner-taylor-swift-music-video-eras-backflip Taylor Lautner’s got something the whole family can enjoy
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Nov 7, 2023 01:02
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Ok Comboomer posted:https://www.polygon.com/23943739/taylor-lautner-taylor-swift-music-video-eras-backflip Is that Matt Doyle?
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Nov 7, 2023 18:04
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I just listened to last week's MBMBAM. It's incredible that Travis assumes he'll be the only adult among teenagers at a Kesha concert. Her big song came out almost 15 years ago. Most people there will easily be in their 30s
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Nov 8, 2023 00:43
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Professor Wayne posted:I just listened to last week's MBMBAM. It's incredible that Travis assumes he'll be the only adult among teenagers at a Kesha concert. Her big song came out almost 15 years ago. Most people there will easily be in their 30s On the flip side, I thought it was admirable he was preparing himself for the worst. Not always a guarantee!
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Nov 8, 2023 01:48
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It's just like Travis to steal Justin's thunder and have the same birthday.
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Nov 8, 2023 04:55
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I can't believe their editor left in Travis killing Justin and eating his heart to gain his power (reading Fast Food commercials)
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Nov 8, 2023 21:13
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This week in Sawbones, Sydnee and Justin talk about people who just can't stop cumming
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Nov 8, 2023 21:33
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Shinjobi posted:This week in Sawbones, Sydnee and Justin talk about people who just can't stop cumming Weird to talk about Travis so publicly
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Nov 8, 2023 21:36
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"And Travis, you had... needs." https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZT8ASYbR6/
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Nov 8, 2023 23:30
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C-Euro posted:I don't think the majority of the McElroy listenership would be interested in a "bad" ending of a TAZ season. The closest they've come to that was the player character death in Amnesty and having to shoehorn in a nobody NPC for the final arc felt really awkward. Also it would pretty much suck rear end unless there was an opportunity for redemption. Like, the amount of medium to long form narrative art that ends badly is extremely minimal because most people don't want to feel bad while consuming generally Good Times Escapism with the world as hosed up as it is. Like I firmly agree TAZ has its issues but Jesus Christ it's a podcast, not Fear And Hunger.
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Nov 9, 2023 11:18
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The problems that they don't know how to design an encounter or play the game at all are damning but there are plenty of opportunities for a dice roll to force the players to improvise on the fly and come up with creative solutions that don't just lead to a total party kill.
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Nov 9, 2023 15:21
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If you want to see a McElroy full party wipe, the latest stream of Super McElroy Brothers had them taking an hour and a half to get through two levels and a boss in Donkey Kong Country. A suffering game if ever there was one.
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Nov 9, 2023 16:45
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SamuraiFoochs posted:Also it would pretty much suck rear end unless there was an opportunity for redemption. Like, the amount of medium to long form narrative art that ends badly is extremely minimal because most people don't want to feel bad while consuming generally Good Times Escapism with the world as hosed up as it is. The point isn’t that there aren’t bad endings, it’s that nothing bad ever happens. They never lose, unless it’s a specifically orchestrated loss that’s a secret win. Theres no loving stakes to anything; they had one PC death, ever, five years ago, and in the fuckin’ like five years and three campaigns since then there’s been no actual danger, stakes, or difficult character choices they’ve ever had to make. They treat campaigns like riding a rollercoaster, where any perceived danger is actually 100% safe because they’re on the track and everyone gets off the ride safely. But moreso than that, it’s a lovely lazy rollercoaster for toddlers where the drops are five feet at most and the whole thing goes two miles an hour. Never mind the lazy encounter design or complete lack of knowledge of the game they’ve monetized a significant portion of their lives playing, which is a serious enough charge in and of itself, it’s little things like as aforementioned their complete lack of lateral thinking, inability to take even small losses like a bad perception check or hosed up stealth roll, tiny little failures that ultimately don’t mean anything but show that these people in this world are fallible and they could lose, even if they won’t. There’s never a single moment now where disbelief is suspended because everyone will always be fine, they’ll always succeed, and even if the roll is bad they’ll lie and say it’s actually a success. Again, let’s contrast this to infinitely superior podcast NADDPOD, which has almost the exact same setup of one DM with three PCs in a comedy-focused campaign except it involves people who took the time to learn how to play the game, great encounter design from a knowledgeable DM who cares about enforcing the rules, and a willingness to punish the players when they roll badly or do stupid poo poo. Two recent examples: in their current campaign, a PC got a cursed helm that he eventually succumbed to and his entire body was taken over by a malignant soul that had cursed his helm. So as a result the spent the next third of the campaign up to this point with the player’s PC just gone, with the player having to play a backup character while they spent a huge amount of time and multiple campaign arcs hunting down where this player’s former PC had gone, confronting him dramatically, then finally breaking him out of the helm to finally get the player his original character back. That is a situation that involves zero character deaths and had actual dramatic stakes, with the win being a hard-fought and narratively earned because the party went through a trial to achieve it, over whatever way TAZ would’ve handled something like that. Second scenario: In this campaign, the party was sneaking through a fortress and one of the PCs thought of a way to combine a silence spell and a grenade to kill an entire encounter of like four to five dudes before they even had a chance to act, in a way that didn’t alert anyone else within the fortress. This wasn’t some rear end-pully bullshit; it required several successful stealth and arcana checks to get everything in place and good rolls to set everything off, but when it did they essentially solved a combat encounter in one action. It was one of the coolest moments I’ve ever witnessed in any actual play podcast literally ever, and it was done more or less 100% RAW (or if not 100%, the ignorable part was safely within rule one guidelines). And the reason it was successful was because it utilized an extremely knowledgeable player who thought and always thinks super creatively, an extremely knowledgeable and experienced DM who knows what checks and difficulty to set an ask like that so the victory is earned and still has a chance to fail, and a willingness to bend but not break to player demands. They did the homework and as a result created an organic moment, via shared storytelling, that was one of the coolest single moments I’ve ever heard in an AP podcast. It wasn’t some “okay Travis roll a d20. Oh uh 8? Roll with advantage. 13? Uh yeah sure you win.” Aka the TAZ experience.
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Nov 9, 2023 17:48
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NieR Occomata posted:Never mind the lazy encounter design or complete lack of knowledge of the game they’ve monetized a significant portion of their lives playing, which is a serious enough charge in and of itself, I don''t think that is a very serious charge to be honest.
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Nov 9, 2023 18:13
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yeah unfortunately taz got success because they have good chemistry and got in early. but it's not early now and there are competitors who have better chemistry, playing games better, and with better release schedules. the model t was huge at the time
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Nov 9, 2023 18:32
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thebardyspoon posted:I don''t think that is a very serious charge to be honest. It’s an entertainment product that (ostensibly) has rules. It is serious. It’d be akin to being a fan of an NFL team where the QB doesn’t know that you can’t throw a forward pass beyond the line of scrimmage (aka, being a Jets fan). But to complete the analogy, it’d be like watching Zach Wilson huck a bajillion interceptions and bad passes into triple coverage all loving game and the refs swooped in at the end of the fourth quarter to give them the win every time and they’re 8-0 instead of what they actually are right now, 4-4. It would not only make the Jets fradulent as hell, but it’d make the product as a whole worse because nothing actually matters, the zebras are gonna swoop in and give them the win regardless. This is currently where TAZ is, because they refuse to stop repeating the lie that it is a game based off a ttrpg system as opposed to what it actually is, which is a radio play with dice rolling sfx added in to the background. And again, like I said before, that’s loving fine. You want to make a radio play, then do it. Seriously, if that’s what the McElroys want to do, then they should do it, but I think you and I both know they can’t hack it as “real” storytellers of actual, authored narratives considering how often they trip over the low as hell bar that is AP storytelling, so instead pretend that it’s all just a game, ha-ha, while both playing the game terribly and telling bad stories. It’s this horseshit disingenuous framing of what they’re actually doing that is the central problem, while both putting out a bad product and putting on a bad showcase of the game that is supposed to be on display in their actual play podcast. And it’s made all the worse by any number of infinitely superior, better played, funnier, and more engaging AP podcasts that are put out by people without the last name McElroy who aren’t as successful because they do not have the last name of McElroy.
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Nov 9, 2023 20:02
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Ok I’m convinced, I should be Big Mad about this too
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Nov 9, 2023 20:18
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It's not like a football game because they aren't in direct competition, only tangential competition. It's more like watching two different recordings of people play solitaire. You can watch both, the only limitation is how much time I want to watch people play solitaire. I also don't care who plays solitaire the best, I only care who does it the most amusingly. That being said, I agree they are bad at most of the games they play and I'll probably check out NADD podcast since the game of solitaire the boys are playing is getting less fun to watch and my time is limited.
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Nov 9, 2023 20:22
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TraColonel Whitey posted:Ok I’m convinced, I should be Big Mad about this too Vis
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Nov 9, 2023 20:28
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Listen to Dragon Friends if you want people not really understanding the system but also making stupid decisions and getting punished for them. There's a whole episode where they divert from the story to help put out a fire, and they almost TPK because of decisions made up to and during that episode.
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Nov 9, 2023 20:43
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One thing that confuses me about the most recent campaign is the injury stuff I feel like the players wracked up injuries constantly and then it just kind of.. never did anything I'm assuming that they just completely ignored that system?
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Nov 9, 2023 20:57
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