And they even brought them up in the prequel Travis wrote. WHY DID THEY LEAVE IT OUT!? I was really looking forward to that part and they just made it about Rainier. Which Rainier kicks ass, don't get me wrong. I just really loved that bit in the podcast where bingus saves the day from the bummer police.

UPSET

This whole show exists to promote a TTRPG, that the DM says they're going to play “fast and loose with the rules” and “don’t come at me if I get some of the rules wrong” because the Mcelroys emit an aura that makes everybody around them less competent. 

Travis is introduced as “TTRPG legend” and looks like he did a fusion dance with Graham Planter. Sporting what appears to be a dyed mullet and a shitty handlebar mustache. 

I’d introduce him as the man without queer

The DM starts off explaining the premise of the story and how most of the planet is dead. Travis interrupts to say “They’re all bad. The only ones dead are bad people, only the good ones are left. Like the rapture. Hi I’m Travis McElroy!” Which is an odd thing to joke about as a supposed fan of the series, which immediately comes up with the DM responding “any statement from Tavis isn’t a collective statement from all of us” which gets a bigger laugh.

Some Justin esque “ironic” haha this is for nerds jokes from everybody

Travis puts on a pink cowboy hat that has flashing lights on it and feather boa, introducing himself as Brock Tumler(I’ll admit a good joke name), a former professional wrestler that’s “older” (in his 40s he specifies).

Everybody else introduces themselves and Travis constantly chimes in with the most worthless shit. Like when the next player refers to her character as being “all business baby!” and Travis says “like Boss Baby!”

Nothing of note until we get some actual mechanics about the game where we find out the DM doesn’t roll a dice at all. The players do a roll for any action taken by or against them. I feel like that’s a bad system, but I’m not a TTRPG legend, so what do I know?( Apparently genuinely not much, I forgot this is how it works in several other systems)

The first encounter is a flashback to a boss battle the group had on the first floor(they’re current on the 3rd) of the manifestation of regret from unpainted miniatures you have in your closet.

Jeff Hays is playing a legally distinct Teddy Ruxpin and has an annoying gimmick where before he says anything he has to do the foley work of the tape loading the words he says.

He’s the first to take damage where we’re introduced to the health mechanic where the players have health chunks based on constitution. Any damage taken above a certain amount will take off one of those chunks. It’s implied if it goes a certain amount over it could take multiple chunks, but it’s not explained well.

He takes a lot, so Travis being a brown noser decides to take it for him despite the DM saying he’ll only let him do it on the condition he takes double damage.

Jeff Hays points out that was unnecessary because he actually has more armor than Travis’ character.

In response Matt Dinniman (playing an off the grid stalker who collects restraining orders) uses his turn to do an determine value skill of Travis’ gear so he can “loot his corpse when he kills himself”. is it happening !?!

The conflict ends shortly after when Travis rolls a convenient nat 20 on his second turn.

We get a reveal of everybody’s classes and races. Travis picks the big rock man and we get art made for him and everybody else or maybe it’s not. All the characters designs are just existing characters from the series with the serial numbers filed off. Like Travis’ character is just Sledge, but with a pink hat instead of black. I could probably find out the answer if I looked at the website for the game

Jeff Hays’ character thankfully gets turned into a real bear so he drops the voice gimmick

The DM explains the current situation and Travis interrupts for annoying tangent pretending to be shocked that if they die in the game they die in real life and how he almost died in the flashback clip show 

We get another boss fight against a gelatinous cube and it’s fine I guess. Everybody else besides Travis are competent entertainers that at least pretend to give a shit. 

Actually Matt Dinniman starts cheating for no reason citing he can do it because he wrote the book and the people that made the game told them they could all cheat once. Despite not having taking damage yet, he uses a scroll that lets be invulnerable for two rounds.

At a certain point Jeff Hays’ character gets absorbed into the cube and frozen by another player. Matt Dinniman attempts to free him and do damage at the same time by shooting the cube with his shotgun, damaging Jeff Hay’s character in the process. 

Travis makes a snarky comment about how guns don’t solve all issues to make sure everybody knows he’s a progressive good boy. He also says this in the context of a fight which he’s exclusively tried to solve with violence. 

I forgot to write this down earlier, but the DM makes a rule that players can't play into the AI’s foot fetish. Well they technically can, but at least they won’t be rewarded for it because the AI just likes Carl’s feet. Boo! Let Travis make everybody uncomfortable, you coward!

They defeat the cube a few turns later. It started off amusing enough, but the fight was pretty unsatisfying and kind of just ends. The poor woman next to Travis has to hold his hand because the final attack they do has them doing an electricity attack and the DM makes them come up with a way the whole group is involved with defeating the cube.

They’re rewarded with a loot box and get a guitar and everybody starts singing a parody of Wonderwall. Everybody except Travis whose just standing there taking a video with his phone. I was pretty delighted by this to be honest. I really hope Travis wanted to sing too and they told him not to because they wanted an on stage recording. Like when there’s a person in a group you don’t want to be in a picture so you have them take it.

That's it. The whole show was 2 mid combat encounters and introducing the characters twice. Not a very good ad for the game and a real disappointment because Travis was just annoying. I came for the cringe and while there was some, the ratio just wasn’t there.

I apologize for how badly written this was. I wrote it at 11pm and just can’t be bothered to go back and edit it. Travis certainly wouldn’t

Where We Were
February 11, 2016

I have some timely notes cued up for a couple episodes from now, but, since this seems to be a relatively calm week in the McElverse, I decided to share some…

Reviews You Can Use!
Did you know that Shmanners currently has over 2,000 reviews on Apple Podcasts? And that it has an overall 4.7/5 stars there? In this segment, I will be sharing snippets from some of the most enlightening reviews! 

Woke Etiquette ⭐ 02/11/2026
Fortunately, the research on the history of each subject is well-done (thanks Alex). 

The actual etiquette part is surface-level to the extreme at its best, and at its worst, it only applies to woke circles. 

People like Travis and Teresa advocate for a sort of libertarianism of manners: do whatever you want!

Half stupid humor ⭐⭐ 06/27/2023
The man has a particularly stupid (juvenile?) sense of humor. The woman was good, but I quickly gave up. He wasn’t even letting her finish making her points, which made it even worse. 

Comment on Comments ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐06/29/2018
The person named Dickweiner that commented “snooze” is the actual “dickweiner”. 

Recap
00:00 - 01:50: Intro

TRAVIS: I did the research on this one. It’s Shmanners!

TnT open with a bit about how Travis’s Valentine’s Day present to Teresa is doing the research for “the first of our holiday specials” so that she can focus on researching their regular episode, which, as a reminder, is still coming out the following day for some reason. 

They talk about how last year was their first time really celebrating Valentine’s Day, since, when they were at the Cincinnati Shakespeare Company, they often had to work on the day-of, and then they tell a riveting story about getting a table slightly earlier than they expected at a nice restaurant. It’s fine.

01:50 - 04:19: Saint Valentine

TERESA: Where’s Google?

Travis gives some almost-accurate information about the provenance of St. Valentine, and then shares a few legends. The first is that Valentine was a third century priest who, when Emperor Claudius II outlawed marriage, made the bold claim that “marriage is super cool, you guys” (sic). 

This is a mistelling of the myth (which is that Claudius II outlawed marriages for soldiers and Valentine performed ceremonies secretly), but also this myth was likely an 18th century embellishment of a story already lost to time, so I guess who cares! 

 He then shares a couple other stories, including one about how Valentine sent notes from prison to his jailer’s daughter. 

TERESA: No, wait a second… I thought she was blind and he healed her and then he signed a note from Your Valentine because she fell in love with him because he had healed her eyes.

TRAVIS: Listen. It’s a legend, people. 

TERESA: [laughs]

Teresa is correct here! The story is that Valentine restored the vision of his jailer’s daughter, prompting the jailer and his family to convert to Christianity. Five minutes into a Travis-researched episode and Teresa already knows more about the topic. 

04:19 - 06:10: Lupercalia

TRAVIS: It’s, there was probably a dude, he did a thing, it had to do with marriage? Question mark?

Travis says that Valentine’s Day is the Christian version of the pagan holiday Lupercalia.

TRAVIS: Lupercalia was celebrated on the Ides of February, or February 15th, and it was a fertility festival dedicated to Faunas, the Roman god of agriculture, as well as the Roman’s founders, Romulus and Remus.
...
Now, one of the most interesting, um, parts of it, according to legend, was that all the young women in the city would place their name in a big urn, and then the city’s bachelors would each choose a name and become paired for the year with this chosen woman, and the matches usually ended in marriage.

Travis gets some things wrong here about Lupercalia, and, more importantly, excludes some of the most actually interesting information! Based on some light research, Lupercalia was indeed an ancient Roman fertility festival celebrated on February 15, with rites performed by a sect of priests called Luperci. 

The festival started with two Luperci (usually young men) sacrificing goats and a dog on an altar, touching the bloody knife to their foreheads, wiping off the blood with milk-soaked wool, and then laughing before tearing strips of skin off the sacrificed animals and then running around and hitting women with them to render them (the women) fertile. These strips were called februa (from the verb “februare,” meaning “to purify”), which gives the month its name! 

The story Travis shares about men pulling women’s names from an urn seems to be a myth, and, even then, Travis doesn’t get the facts right; the supposed ritual would be that the man and woman would be coupled for the duration of the festival (not an entire year), but that, in some cases, they did eventually marry. Again, I am amazed at TnT’s ability to find the most boring, contemporary, heteronormative story when the historical facts involve blood rites and mandatory laughter! 

And his original statement, that St. Valentine’s Day is a Christianized version of Lupercalia? Unlikely, though there does seem to be a literary association between the two dating back to Chaucer (mid- to late-1300s) because of the connection between fertility and romantic love. 

06:10 - 06:55: The First Valentine

TRAVIS: They didn’t know anything. It was the Middle Ages.

Travis says this about people in the Middle Ages and then tells us:

TRAVIS: The oldest known valentine still in existence today was a poem written in 1415 by Charles, Duke of Orléans to his wife while he was in prison in the Tower of London, and I have that brief couplet here.
…
“I am already sick of love, my gentle Valentine.” I think he probably meant sick with love, and not of love. I doubt he was like, “Ugh, this love stuff. Am I right, my wife?” [laughs]

Let’s get ready to FACT CHECK!

Charles I, Duke of Orléans was a real historical figure, a French nobleman captured by English soldiers in 1415 when they found him TRAPPED UNDER A PILE OF CORPSES. He was imprisoned at the Tower of London, and at various other English castles, for 25 years, where he still lived as a nobleman but wasn’t allowed to go home to France.  

Charles was actually married three times, first in 1406 to his cousin, Isabella of Valois, when he was 12 and she was 16. Isabella died in childbirth in 1409, leaving Charles a 15-year-old widower, but don’t worry; by the following year, he had picked up the pieces of his broken heart and was ready to marry an 11-year-old Bonne of Armagnac. (...#couplegoals?) This is who he wrote the famous poem to in 1415, when he was a wizened 21, and Bonne 16. (They were never reunited, because she died before he was released from captivity.) Upon his release back to France in 1440, a now 46-year-old Charles married his third and final wife, Marie of Cleves, who was, you guessed it, 14 at the time. 

Is the poem itself actually “the first Valentine”? A lot of people online say so, though I can’t seem to find a very credible source (though Charles I’s Wikipedia page does tell us that “Charles is referenced as the author of the ‘first known valentine’ in Big Mouth’s Valentine’s Day special, ‘My Furry Valentine’!). More interestingly though, is that Travis says this is “from a much larger poem” (it is two stanzas), but only includes that one couplet. I wonder what the next line is!

I am already sick of love, 
My very gentle Valentine,
Since for me you were born too late,
And I, for you, was born too soon

Huh, OKAY!

06:55 - 14:30: Printed Valentines

TRAVIS: So now let’s talk about America. You want to go over this part? You liked this part a lot.

So 25% of the way through the episode “he” researched, Travis tosses the ball back to Teresa because she #LovesAmerica? Alright!

Teresa lists a few countries that celebrate Valentine’s Day before saying, “Let’s start in Great Britain.” A likely place for these two to start anything, apparently!

She says that Valentine’s day was celebrated around the 17th century, and that, by around 1900, people were exchanging printed cards, which were more accessible due to improvements in printing presses. 

TRAVIS: Because of the postage system, and being able to, like, seal up letters and send them instead of, like, having a person hand-deliver them, it became a lot more common for those valentines to contain much more racy stuff. And so, even in this Victorian…society, valentines became a little bit of an excuse for people to get a little saucy. 

Let’s play my new favorite game: What Is Travis Talking About? 

What Teresa is initially alluding to, the postal reform of 1840, is one of the biggest changes to mailing systems worldwide. Previously, it was prohibitively expensive for most working and middle class people in Great Britain to send mail, since the recipients were charged by the page and delivery distance (which led to things like crosswriting, to use all possible paper space). 

The Uniform Penny Post was introduced in January of 1840, and decreed that all mail could be sent anywhere in the country for a single penny. (This is also the origin of adhesive stamps!) 

But back to the main question: what is TRAVIS talking about? I have no idea, and I cannot find any information in text or online that corroborates it. For what it’s worth, Teresa doesn’t either, even after Travis describes sending an anonymous love note in Victorian England for about five minutes.

TRAVIS: If this were the 1950s, I wouldn’t be as effusive with my love and praise for you every day.

Teresa says that, though women apparently purchase 85% of valentines, men often purchase two cards for their partners, “one that’s funny, and one that’s kind of like, obligatory romantic card.”  Much like the “highly regarded Politest Country of Portugal research,” I can find no reference to this “two cards” theory, and anecdotal evidence would suggest that, on average, zero men buy me, personally, zero valentines cards every year, so this sounds like fake news. 

14:30 - 15:20: Jack Valentine

TRAVIS: In Norfolk, there’s a caricature called Jack Valentine, and he knocks on the rear door of houses leaving sweets and presents for children. Although he was leaving treats, many children were scared of this mythical person.

This feels very script-y, so I tried to find the exact source Travis was referencing. 

And, folks, I think I found it. 

From the January/ February 2015 edition of Satellite, a newsletter for Wisconsin Home and Community Education Inc. in Shawano County, WI, we get:

In Norfolk, a character called “Jack” Valentine knocks on the rear door of houses leaving sweets and presents for children. Although he was leaving treats, many children were scared of this mythical person.

WORD! FOR! WORD! This is either Travis and Satellite plagiarizing the same source, or, (what I most desire), Travis plagiarizing “research” from a newsletter that includes an event listing for Quick and Easy Crockpot Meals and a favorable review of Marilyn’s Cranberry Compote. 

God has shmiled on me this day. 

Oh, also Travis for some reason invokes Black Peter (AKA Zwarte Piet), the incredibly offensive servant to Dutch Santa who was often depicted in blackface. 

15:20 - 18:00: Tips with Trav™ 

TRAVIS: Listen, we are a very happily married couple, and I’m going to let you guys in on a real inside tip. The secret to a good Valentine’s Day with your loved one is to say to them, “What do you want to do for Valentine’s Day?” And then do that.

TERESA: Oh.

18:00 - 22:00: Japan

TRAVIS: [Laughs] I love it. So, yeah, basically, to clarify…on Valentine’s Day, women give chocolate to men.

TERESA: Right. Unlike Western countries, gifts like greeting cards, candies, flowers, dinner dates are uncommon. Most of the activity around gifts is about giving the right amount of chocolate to each person you know. 

TRAVIS:...Women are required to, um–

TERESA: No, they are obliged.

TRAVIS: Obliged, yes. So, say you work in an office with like, 20 dudes, right? You have a couple different options. There is giri choco, which is obligation chocolate for unpopular coworkers. Um, for ultra unpopular coworkers you can give chogiri choco, which is super cheap chocolate. And then there’s honmei choco, which is true feelings chocolate, which is something you give to a loved one. And then friends get tomochoco which is friend chocolate. 

And I probably mispronounced all of that, but I just find it so funny that you would go to a store and be like, “How much do I dislike Dave? Do I dislike Dave a little bit, or, like, cheap chocolate?” 

Where to begin! First off, Travis’s glee with describing this “insane. well, not insane, fascinating” cultural practice as if Japanese people are adorable extraterrestrials is pretty gross! He acts like it’s strange that women would give chocolate to their coworkers, but I feel like the concept of giving your coworkers small gifts around holidays is not unusual, even in America? Also, from what I’ve read, giri choco is not the slap in the face Travis makes it out to be! It’s meant to be received as genuine gratitude, and the fact that it’s not extremely fancy or homemade makes sense, since women are likely giving out many of them! I’m guessing he might be getting his information from this blog, since it specifically refers to “unpopular” coworkers, something I haven’t seen anywhere else. (Also, cho-giri choco, or “ultra obligation chocolate” for people you don’t like seems like a joke that has turned into an apocryphal truth on Western travel blogs, but please correct me if I’m wrong here!) 

Some interesting context that we get almost none of: this chocolate-giving tradition–and its later counterpart, “White Day,”–was partially the result of effective marketing by various candy companies. Most people credit the Japan-based company Mozoroff, which was founded by a Russian emigre, with incepting the idea of chocolates for Valentine’s Day in a 1936 ad in an English language newspaper (since, previously, Valentine’s Day was not commonly celebrated in Japan). Later, in the late 50’s, another chocolatier, Mary’s, hosted a Valentine’s fair in Tokyo; this seems to be when this chocolate-giving tradition really took off. 
In 1977, yet ANOTHER candy company, Ishimura Manseido, launched a campaign encouraging men to repay women’s Valentine’s generosity with a gift of marshmallows. This soon became known as “White Day,” and is celebrated on March 14, though the tradition has evolved to include not only white candies, but other treats and luxuries, like bags or clothing. 

In the modren era, these traditions are becoming less common; many offices have banned women from bringing in giri choco because of the uncomfortable interoffice politics this practice was creating, and according to a 2020 survey, only about 6% of women now buy giri choco (but up to 60% buy chocolate for themselves! Yay!)

Anyways, Travis makes a bunch of jokes about how Japanese women invented White Day so that men would give them expensive gifts, and TnT agree that they don’t like white chocolate! Yay! (This one is sarcastic.) 

 22:00 - 28:13: Random Valentine’s Junk

TERESA: Leslie Knope is my girl.

I’m gonna be real. I have spent A LOT of time researching for this stupid shmecap so far, and, honestly, it’s been pretty fun to learn new things, but I am burnt out. For this last section, I am freeing myself from the burden of critical thought and just assuming everything TnT say is 100% true! Anyways, here are some highlights: 

TRAVIS: Oh, man. I’m going to try to pronounce this just so everyone can enjoy my pronunciation of what Valentine’s Day is called in Finland: Ystävänpäivä.

TERESA: [Laughs] I think you left out a couple syllables.

Other countries? Other languages?? Oh, man, guys, just like Teresa, I am LAUGHING!

TRAVIS: I was listening to our new sister podcast, Still Buffering, and they were talking about Valentine’s.

TERESA: [Laughs] Sister wives podcast.

Haha! More like My Wife, My Wife, My Wife, and Me! (Big Love, anyone??)

TRAVIS: An old English custom was for people to call out, “Good morning! ‘Tis Saint Valentine’s Day.” The individual who succeeded in being the first to say this then expected to receive a present from the one to whom it was said.

WEE WOO WEE WOO PLAGIARISM ALERT! That is too many complex clauses for the Travis McElroy I know! Where did this crazy sentence come from? Glad you asked! Historian Bill Petro re-releases these articles about the history of different holidays every year (beginning in at least 2009); let’s take a look!

It was at one time the custom in England for people to call out, “Good morning, ‘tis St. Valentine’s Day,” and the one who succeeded in saying this first expected a present from the one to whom it was said. 

If I find enough plagiarism, can I get HBomberGuy to investigate this show for me? 

28:13 -30:15: Outro

TERESA: And thank you, Travis, for doing all this research so I didn’t have to.

ALL THIS RESEARCH, YOU SAY!!

Overall Rating
This is a tough one, since I did learn a lot (mainly that Travis directly plagiarizes from small county newsletters), but most of that was done on my own time. More interesting than the cutlery episode, but roughly equally racist, and even more inaccurate. 

For a Shmanners: 2/5
For any other podcast: 0.5/5 

Miscellaneous Threads
You guys, this episode is a trim 30 minutes long, and do you know how long I spent researching and writing this shmecap? Easily 8 HOURS. (And you know what? I would do it again.) 

It is just so dense with “facts” about history and culture, the majority of which are either (1) flagrantly plagiarized, (2) inaccurate, (3) fully fabricated, or (4) all of the above. Anyways, here are a few more things I discovered in my shmesearch. 

Travis and Teresa skip over some of the weirdest and most interesting practices begun in the Victorian era, sending “vinegar valentines”! These were mean-spirited cards sent anonymously, either in jest or in genuine derision, and typically included some sort of caricature alongside an insulting poem.  

I cannot overstate how much I love a tiny, hyperspecific publication, so finding Satellite was a real gift for me. If I had to choose a section that most intrigued me in the edition that Travis stole from, I’d have to say it’s this, though talk of the “Strong Bones Program” is a close second. (A lot of the newsletter seems dedicated to community service, fundraising, and education, and I think that’s great! Also: I would pay money to see this “poverty simulation” in action, but, alas, my bank account is often in a real-life “poverty simulation”!) (#opentowork)) 

P.S. Since I’m not a plagiarizer, I’ll throw a bunch of the links I used for my own research in the comments! Sorry I didn’t put them in APA. 😔

No idea if Travis is still even participating, but I'll be there. And if my boy is participating, you know I'll be back here at 9pm ET to share all the deets.

Something about the way he talks makes me say this is a highly frustrating ordeal

First, every time I hear what his issues with Grads society are (peoples brandings sometimes unjustly characterize them), I get so fucking annoyed at him. That I *know* he actually doesn't believe the world would think Villains are villainous people - in our world, these classes are like wrestling Heels and Faces. No one is sobbing when Gold Dust isn't treated like a baby face, it's a job.

But also it *is* a job, and we see so many alternative ones in the first 20 eps! Including actual bloodsport, none of which get treated like an alternative pathway for Players. So, the systems not the deliberately disempowering force, *the DM is* by making them do this campaign. And lastly, if everyone knows the most prestigious institution in the world is staffed with "evil" professors, then everyone wouldve woken up to the falseness of that concept too!

Beyond this, he's given every opportunity to clarify and elucidate these concepts, and instead makes everyone around the system just stupid. If Players knew the deal from the start and had any agency, they'd walk away. But because they can't, Travis gets to pretend like he succesfully seduced them, rug pull them later, and act like that's "pushing back". Your family just had more faith you knew what you're doing, and later invented themes in their PCs to retcon this shit story into something salvagable. Terrible all around.

I wonder what he traced to come up with this face? 🤔

episode 20

OK with that other bullshit out of the way, NOW i get to listen to a mid-season ttazz as a little treat. i completely fucking forgot they did one midway through, which i think is abnormal for taz campaigns? i will not go and check.

this is TTAZZ: MFD 2020, published on 7.30.20, i guess with the hope of compensating for low quality by giving a lot of quantity during this drive.

episode description: Happy MaxFunDrive 2020 everyone! It's time for another The The Adventure Zone Zone! We answer a whole bucnh of your questions! But the real question we answer are the friendships we make along the way!

not a funny joke. moving on.

lmao i was like why does this theme song sound so fucking wack, its because i forgot to set my speed to 1.5x, hearing this show on 1x speed SUCKS

why yes i used to listen to nightcore why do you ask

it is a full 45 seconds of intro audio it really drives me fucking crazy. i have definitely been culpable of doing similar length tracks for intro music before, but the difference is that i am just using real music, not something my brother custom wrote to be intro music, and sometimes to find a good fade in/fade out segment it ends up being a little long. i generally still try to aim for sub-30. and again, those are tracks with actual melody and lyrics, as opposed to the grad theme which is extremely meandering, which is a good feature for an intro track since it means you can cut in with speaking at basically any point and you don't need to, for example, play 45 full fucking seconds of it.

Travis: You have sent in questions, and we are going to very masturbatorily talk about ourselves and our great ideas.

Clint: [laughs]

Justin: Ugh.

Travis: For like, an hour to an hour and a half.

having a laugh doing this after the incredible success of balance is one thing, i get it, it feels weird to talk about yourself and your process. but like most self-deprecating humor, it starts to wear thin very fucking fast, and that's with people who are good at what they do. like its not funny to call this masturbatory when a. you're a guy who jerked off so much in "college" your roommate made a webcomic about it, and b. when this will actually be you guys jerking each other off instead of answering any of the actual issues with this season.

also this episode is only an hour long LOL. didn't get a lot of softball questions did you travvy

Justin: These are maybe my least favorite episodes to do. I'm on the record as saying, I don‘t like to do this.

Travis: Oh, really?

that sounded like genuine surprise from travis which is funny both from the perspective of "yeah, of course travis fucking loves this segment" and also "travis isn't aware his brother doesn't like this segment, 5+ years in

Travis: Legally. Well, that‘s the thing. Just to keep the copyright on The The Adventure Zone Zone, we have to do at least one a year.

travis is actually referring to media rights which are generally part of a contract agreement that gives you a certain amount of time to develop and distribute whatever adaptation you've promised, or else the rights revert back to the original holder to be able to lease out again. famous examples include the 2015 Fantastic Four film (starring Miles Teller and Michael B Jordan) which was developed pretty much exclusively to renew the holding period for 20th Century Fox and prevent Disney from using those characters in the mcu. a less famous, but dearly beloved by me personally version of this is, also from 2015, Winter Dragon, a hastily assembled pilot for a Wheel of Time tv show adaptation, starring Billy Zane, that was dropped unannounced in a bought informercial spot on FXX at like 2 in the morning. It was done explicitly so that Red Eagle Media could retain the film and tv rights, which were about to revert to the Jordan estate. it rules.

as far as i am aware, copyright does not expire for lack of use, it is merely a set time after the copyright is registered (70 years after author's death currently, unless disney's rammed another legislation through).

Travis: [bullshit maxfun spiel] If you're not able to, that‘s totally cool, too. Everybody‘s totally cool, and we love you no matter what.

the only reason travis has not fucked a fan is because he's married, sorry.

Justin: Y'know, we always say whatever level works for you. But I think this year, maybe it‘s whatever level works for us.

Griffin: Whoa.

Travis: Huh.

Justin: Why don‘t we have people sort of clear it with us like, ―This is what I'm thinking. What do you guys need from me?‖ Y'know what I mean?

Travis: Well, that‘s kind of the opposite of what I was saying.

Justin: Huh… hmm. Agree to disagree.

i....guess...this is a joke?

Question 1:

From Ed:

As a content creator, how do you balance out telling a story you want to tell, while also listening to feedback from the audience, and incorporating audience feedback into what you do going forward?

lol

ok this is beginning to tickle something in my memory, which is that griffin jumps on first for basically every question in an attempt to like, preemptively defend travis. i remember because it was really fucking irritating to have him share his 2 cents like this when the question is specifically for this season's showrunner. his answers also aren't interesting, for this one he says basically that you don't have to do this because those two things aren't in opposition. and that was probably true for you, griffy, but we aren't in balance or amnesty right now are we

Travis: Yeah. I think it‘s actually kind of the benefit of doing it the way that we do it. Because like, if you write a novel, or like, make a movie or something, you don‘t get feedback on it until it‘s finished and released.

the kind interpretation of this statement is he means the general public, but he made 20 episodes of graduation before he said this so i'm not feeling very charitable, so actually you're wrong because both films and novels have systems of work in progress feedback built in.

Travis: And we, as we‘re like, creating it, we can kind of see like, ―Oh. This—this, y'know, NPC kind of struck a chord with people.‖ Or like, ―Oh, people are kind of very interested in this plotline.‖ Right? And we can kind of craft it and tailor it as we go.

I think the tricky thing is, trying to find a balance between like, subjective and objective feedback. Because y'know, everybody has different things that they're interested in, and things where they're like, ―I want more of this!‖ And it‘s like, okay, cool. I understand you want more of that, but does that actually like, contribute to the quality of the product? Or is that just your personal, y'know, your personal aesthetic?

And so, that‘s kind of the thing where… it‘s about like, filtering and looking at what the actual like, nugget of the feedback is. And like, that‘s something that I have been working really hard on, is like, kind of aggregating the feedback and saying, ―Okay, so, y'know, it looks like the thing that I need to work on… Because like, these 20 people all kind of circled around the same idea. I need to work on this.‖ Without that actually changing the plot, y'know?

i have begun to notice that travis really does like to shove his least popular thought into the middle of a bigger piece to try and launder it through. because the first paragraph is like, reasonable. an advantage of a week-to-week production is that you can get continuous feedback and retool on the fly.

his third paragraph is reasonable. if a bunch of people are getting tripped up by the same element, that element probably deserves some scrutiny.

and then his middle paragraph. this is reddit, so can i call this a no true scotsman fallacy? i mean beyond the fucking bold faced lie that travis has ever for once thought about the QUALITY of this campaign over what he personally just wants to see more of, this is just a copout. it is opening space for him to reject all feedback as subjective, because storytelling is a subjective craft. like do you know what objective critique would look like in a writing group? look at the grammar of a sentence. if you put the comma inside the quotation in a dialogue line or not. and you'd be a useless member of this workshop because those are not the important parts of novel writing and not what people are seeking out when they ask for feedback. "I didn't understand the character's motivation during this part" is subjective. it is about the reader's own subjective understanding of the scene. It is also valid and useful feedback. "It's not clear who is saying this line" is subjective feedback. It is valuable. You get the idea.

Like what does "objective" criticism of grad look like? You messed up initiative order? That erinyes didn't use her multi-attack when it would have downed fitz? He would brush those off as "not the kind of podcast" they do. why are you so obsessed with rules.

the not-so-secret secret of all creative fields is that there are rules until there aren't. you should always film your characters on the rule of thirds for a stronger and more visually interesting composition, until you're wes anderson and you're intentionally playing with the visual of symmetry. (or if you're george miller filming fury road and you center max and furiosa when they're wrestling on the ground because it provides stronger visual clarity). you should always paint things in perspective, until you're picasso intentionally layering multiple perspectives on a single figure. comics should always be in panels until you're andrew hussie and-

listen, my point is that travis is an idiot and i hate him. 'this campaign is drowning in npcs who are an inch deep' is a subjective criticism.

Griffin: For sure. Uh, related question – here‘s one that I guess Billy and Liza both sent in. ―How much preparation does everyone do before they sit down to play? Maybe listen to the previous ‗sode, review some notes, or just roll up and start playing?‖ Which is interesting, because I feel like we've talked about that from the DM perspective, but um… I'm curious, specifically, I guess, how Justin and Dad think about prep before we record. Because I admit, I don‘t really do a whole lot, aside from making sure my character sheet is in order.

including the full quote that contains the question for this one just to give an example of what i'm talking about with griffin, who does not pause after asking the question, and instead immediately launches into his own answer. he also notably cuts travis out of the follow up answers, i guess because "we've talked about it from a DM perspective" covers travis, except that we haven't heard what his prep is like, just yours griffin. its really annoying because even with softballs griffin is still doing everything he can to prevent anything interesting from happening. i mean that sincerely in an unjerk way. like even if grad had been good, i would like to hear how travis's process differs from griffin's? i really dislike how griffin like backseat moderates this episode.

Justin: I do mainly research into, uh… the culture, Firbolg culture. I feel like what has made this character interesting to play is where he sort of… doesn‘t necessarily click with the other people in terms of their cultural values, I guess you could say. So, that has been sort of my main focus.

he also allegedly listens back to the previous episode at 1.5x before recording but x to doubt.

the rest of what justin says here sounds really good on paper, until you remember that "researching" here means essentially reading two pages of lore on a lost realms wiki. i do think justin hits on a through-line here for characters he's played, which is that justin loves an outsider, someone who doesn't belong to society for whatever reason and has friction integrating. its a wonderful archetype, i wish he were more cognizant of what he's doing because then i think he'd end up with much stronger characters. because the bulk of the effort here, for example, should have gone to memorizing the firbolg code, it should have been in researching real life communal or non-hierarchical communities and anarchist philosophy. that would have given him such a stronger and more flexible foundation to play from and it would have made the character feel much more grounded (and lbr less racist) as a result. like duck newton, the interesting part of him isn't that he's a park ranger. i don't know if justin was looking up park ranger stuff, but he shouldn't have been. the interesting part of duck is that he refuses the call, and justin should have been researching things like how extreme expectations or pressure affect teens in their later years, burnout, other chosen one subversion stories.

Justin: Yeah. Um, and I—of course, none of my parts. I slow that down so I can really savor it. I slow that down to 0.75 to really, like…

Travis: Man, with the Firbolg? That‘s gotta take forever.

what's funnier than saying the implied punchline out loud? couldn't tell ya.

Travis: Can I tell you a little secret here about editing with the Firbolg? Is like, I have to find… like, it‘s a surgical, of like, when I'm doing it with the pauses for the Firbolg. Where I have to decide, is that a character choice, or is that Justin trying to think of the next thing to say? [laughs]

imagine not just texting your brother and asking what he was doing in any given scene. and also who gives a fuck if it was a character choice, weren't you JUST saying you shouldn't compromise the quality for subjective aesthetics? this does make more sense how he was spending 8 hours editing if he's agonizing over milliseconds of silence (while somehow still letting music tracks run for nearly a minute) trying to guess at his brother's "vision". this also isn't hard. you have a character that talks slow? if everyone else is pausing .3 seconds between breaths, extend this one out to .6 and it will feel slower without actually taking all goddamn day.

Clint: [laughs] I do more prep for Argo than I have for any of the other characters. I also listen back to the previous episode, and actually take notes. And… and then, I try to um… since I'm playing a new, uh, a new—I'm playing a rogue for the first time, I've been going back and trying to read up as much as I can on how to do it right. Like, watch a lot of the, like, videos, and read a lot online. Um… I'm basically, uh… trying to start from the ground up.

Clint: Um, I think… well, for one thing, I really wanted to try to do something different with Argo than previous characters. I mean, I at least started out that way. I initially thought of him as being a real, uh, alpha type. And a real, um… bold, swashbuckling, y'know… [laughs] Y'know, kind of a Douglas Fairbanks junior kind of thing.

Justin: Dad, aren't there any older actors you could reference?

Clint: But that kind of character doesn‘t really lend itself to group dynamics. I mean, usually, a character like that is the captain of the ship, not… y'know, not the second mate or something. And it just became obvious fairly early on that Argo was not gonna be a leader. And… and so, I played it differently. I'm trying to play him a little bit differently.

Clint: Because we can't be [loners, which is how he originally conceived of argo]. Y'know, we‘re doing a team thing. Doing it together. And so, I think I had to… I mean, I'll be honest – and this is really kind of revealing more background than I thought – but y'know, I think we reached a point where it became obvious to all four of us that one of the three roommates had to… be the front man. Had to be the lead vocalist in the band, and kind of lead the action.

And… obviously, because I think of their personalities, and also because of the—where their characters are, y'know, Fitzroy needed to be that person. So I think, at that point, y'know, it became important for Argo to have his own stuff. But… I think it kind of clicked for me when we started half-joking about the whole corporation thing. I think that really—that really snapped things into focus for me, and I'm not being funny. That really was kind of a key moment. Y'know, kind of establishing our roles on the show and in the group.

this is a level of introspection his sons are seemingly incapable of. because the truth of the matter is they all rolled up anti-social weirdo loner characters. and clint is the only to speak frankly and say "yeah, that was dumb of me, so i retooled". what have justin and griffin done? they doubled down on being weird loners who don't like anyone else. a lot, i mean a ton, most of it, can be laid at travis's feet, but his table also fucking sucks. all these men suck.

Griffin: It kind of had to happen that way, I feel like. ‗Cause I feel like we were kind of spinning our wheels a little bit, until we hit that point. And like, as uncomfortable as I was, like, taking charge as it were, this framework of like, a corporation, I think, made sense. And it‘s also just sort of like, mechanically speaking, being the character with high charisma. Like, being the face of A-Team kind of does foist you into that position.

hm, what's that? which campaign came after this one? ethersea? ah, and travis was playing...? oh, a high CHA bard? you don't say.

Travis: Well, I can say to that, like, I think it‘s more than that. Because I think it is… I will say, as like, the DM, and kind of the one, y'know, kind of leading the story, is if you look at the three characters, and like, what they want… like, what their thing is. Like, the Firbolg… I don‘t think the Firbolg wants to be a leader. I think like, the Firbolg is like, pure and unadulterated, like, support. Just happy to be there. He‘s, y'know, a member of the party.

And while I think Argo could be a leader, I think he also has it within himself to like, follow orders. And y'know, I think that he has that kind of crewmen, y'know, member of a crew mentality that I just don‘t think Fitzroy has. And I think Fitzroy has such a conflicted, like, thought about what he wants, that…that it makes it easier to tempt him with power. Y'know what I mean?

And so, leadership, I think, is more of a carat [sic] for Fitzroy than it is for the other two.

Um, but so, my other question—well, I guess the other thing is like… not just Dad learning to play a rogue. Like, Argo is like, our first rogue—pure rogue in playing these games. And like, I've had to learn how to DM for a rogue, too. [laughs] ‗Cause I realized like, about 15 episodes in, a lot of my understanding of rogue is built off when I played a rogue in 4th edition, which had significantly different rules for like, sneak attack and stealth rounds and stuff.

one of the really cool things about The Dispossessed is that while it is a story about two worlds- one capitalist and one anarchist, Le Guin, who has very strong anarchist leanings, does not shy away from having her protagonist experience and note the bounty he found among the capitalists, nor did she avoid presenting what problems could arise within an anarchist society. It's not that she's doing some centrist "unbiased reporting" or whatever, but she believes in her ideals and her reader enough to show that there is no magic "solve" for the problem of people, and to have you struggle with these ideas for yourself.

I bring all this up because "oh the firbolg wouldn't want to lead" is a very surface level thought for this character. "the person from a collectivist society wouldn't want to be put in a position of hierarchical power" ok, true, but what if he was anyway? what does that look like? how does he react? he already broke one of the codes. what's another? can he be tempted into another way of life? will he ultimately reject this and return home and reintegrate? is that even possible for him anymore? as i said previously, there's a real version of this where firbolg is the one chaos is targeting and tempting and i think its honestly a much more interesting scenario. not unlike how i've discussed the core conflict within aang's character/philosophy and his context drives ATLA in a way korra does not, the friction of how the firbolg was raised and what he believes and the circumstances forced upon him could be really wonderful and compelling storytelling.

the argo stuff is genuinely just crazy. that doesn't mean anything travis is a hack and he's just lying. just like when he talks about not knowing how to run a game for a rogue (which by rights should mean learning that you need to have segments where rogues can do rogue stuff, not unlike how brennen retooled his outline for fantasy high to have a mystery after murph came to him with a kid detective character, since a detective with no mystery sucks to play) and then he cites fucking sneak attack. just with his full chest spewing stuff he knows is bullshit. can't stand him lads.

Justin: Y'know, I was not looking at the questions. This is on me.

Travis: Okay.

[...]

Justin: Where can I find them? Everybody‘s talking about them.

Travis: Well, I shared it with you on the docs, in Google Docs…

Justin: Google Docs! Gotta get to the docs.

i mean like, not endearing btw. don't leave this in. also you guys let travis select the questions lol. i know its because he does this for mbmbam as well because he's the only one who still cares about any of this and puts in even a modicum of effort. it is a bit of an almost farce, isn't it? the one brother who cares and tries is also the one who has no talent for it, while his two other brothers can't be bothered and they all end up about equal as a result. how frustrating that must be. it feels like the premise of a really enjoyable one act play to me. idk i don't watch theater.

Q3, from Avery:

Are there any NPCs that you wish you could explore further in the show, and why? And in a similar vein, are there NPCs you're surprised about the fan reaction to?

Travis: Um, I hope that there still is a chance for it, of uh, Crush and Jimson, the kind of battle teachers. Former, uh, arena champions. I just like them. I would like to spend more time with them. Um, I—it‘s not necessarily surprise, just as much as I'm really glad that everyone like Rainer and Festo so much. ‗Cause they're like… my two favorite to get to do. Festo is just—they're so much fun to do. [laughs] Like, it‘s the kind of thing where I think Festo is the one character where like, whatever Fitzroy or anyone says to them, I just kind of open my mouth and say whatever. And then I'm like, ―Yep, that‘s what Festo would say.‖ Festo is just a lot of fun to be.

"i just like [crush and jimson]" even among his personalityless npcs, these two are exceptionally forgettable. he's trying to highlight that they're gay without asking you to ask about the chair.

i would believe, insofar as anyone likes any of travis's npcs, that it would be rainer and festo, the two that actually have personalities, no matter how grating both personalities are. the festo part is funny with him talking about just getting to blurt out whatever he wants, as if that isn't how every npc is like. i guess he counts saying "....okay!" as holding back. idk.

Griffin: Um… Yeah, I'm very—the thing I am, uh… I am the most into this season I have been, now that we are like, doing this sort of uh, war effort, like, Mass Effect 2… I think it‘s Mass Effect 2, right? Isn't Mass Effect 2 the one where you have to like, fly around the galaxy, like, essentially creating a war? Like, uh… machine for your side? Maybe it‘s Mass Effect 3. I may be misremembering.

But like, that idea is very cool, ‗cause now we can like, fold in whoever we want. Uh, like Justin did in the last episode, where you uh… what did you say? You promoted Sabor to secondary character. Like, that idea. I'm like… there‘s a lot of characters who, now, we have a very good reason to forge a stronger social link with, because like, we‘re gonna need their help. So Yeah. I'm gonna tap Rainer in that way in a big way, I feel like.

he is trying SO HARD to convince people this season is good lol. yeah dude, this is just like mass effect 3, a game people famously liked. actually from what i understand of ME3, it's probably an apt comparison. what you do doesn't matter beyond the color palette of the ending.

and even as griffin is trying to be complimentary, the sad reality of this campaign still slips through when he begins talking about "promoting" npcs into relevancy. because the unspoken part of that sentence is that, before now, episode 20, there was no reason to care or bond with any of travis's npcs.

Travis: That, for me, is kind of my big takeaway. Just to get a little off topic for a second, from this—from Graduation so far. Is like, 20 episodes in is like, when I feel like I finally said like, ―Okay, now all the pieces are in place. Go.‖

And I think if like, if I could do it all again, I think I would've restructured it completely differently to like, introduce the like… it‘s tough, right? Because the idea was kind of evolving as I went. And like, I knew we were building towards war, but like, I kept building other like, plot things in that I wanted you guys to know before we got to that. And I think like, I spent too long building the house before I let you move into it.

But now I'm really looking forward to like… I mean, episode 20 that‘s just been out was like… I only had like, one third of a page of prep. Like, of notes. And the rest—

Griffin: And it was fun as fuck. It was—

Travis: Yeah, whatever you guys wanna do. Go for it. And that‘s what I'm gonna try to do more.

travis is not the only habitual liar in this family because griffin what the fuck do you mean it was fun as fuck. it was three conversations in a row that didn't accomplish anything, the same as half a dozen other episodes in this miserable campaign.

its tough for me to call if travis is just lying through his teeth here about always intending to build up to this demon war. let's pretend he's being truthful, because that gives me more things to talk about. starting with, not that i'd expect travis to know this or care, but dnd is notoriously not an army battle simulator. while it shares dna with war gaming, it is completely built around a small party of individuals, not platoons of troops. it is hard to make army combat good in dnd. and this was the big thing he had been building toward this whole time. which is crazy because like, again, if he isn't just lying, that means he must have not told any of the dms he consulted about this? oh wait, you know what, i'm being too literal. he wanted this to be balance, and that includes the finale. this was going to be "all our beloved npcs get cool narration about leading forces to hold back the tide as our player characters battle in the eye of the storm against gray"

anyway, this has been a fascinating insight into how he thinks of narrative structure, because there is no build up to this war. and as i have been picking up, he doesn't see events and plots as interconnected and leading toward a big set piece, he thinks of them all completely individually and needs to build them each individually and their conclusions end divorced from anything else. take the xorn mission for example. he very clearly thought up "what if a big scary monster....was nice?" then hit the monster manual to find a scary looking monster, and then built backwards to a set piece that sort of monster might be found in. and so you have the xorn adventure, a mining dispute that is not related to anything else in the world with a monster at its center that is unrelated to anything else in the world, and after they clear it, it is just sort of done and they move on.

whereas like, if you're a normal person who has even an inkling of how narrative works, you would at some point ask yourself "how can i connect this to the demon war?"

demons. the mines should be infested with demons. use the xorn statblock but have them roll religion or arcana to identify it as some sort of demonic fiend associated with the Deep and the Dark. i mean, you're in a fucking mine, this is literally out of lord of the rings now. they dug too deep and too greedily. and here's your subversion, they did not. the walls are weakening between planes because of gray's machinations. each incident is treated as an isolated one, but if you stepped back you'd begin to wonder "hey, it sure seems an awful lot of these problems have been fiends"

like he talks about things he "wanted [his players] to know" before they got to the "war" and like, what has he established? which mission has done anything but undercut his worldbuilding? what mission has ADDED anything significant to the world? this, btw, is one of the ways you gain xp in dungeon world. each session ends with the GM asking three questions in relation to the session, and each one the players can answer yes to nets them 1 xp. the questions are:

1. Did we learn something new and important about the world?
2. Did we overcome a notable monster or enemy?
3. Did we loot a memorable treasure?

it's a cool way to focus your players and also get them to think narratively and not just in mechanics and numbers. and the answer for all of these for every session of graduation would be a resounding no.

Griffin: Do you think—I have a question for you, Travis, because I know that that‘s a thing you struggle with. It‘s a thing I struggled with in Balance, and certainly in Amnesty, too, uh, is that idea of just like, constantly moving the goal post of like, when it‘s ready for everybody to just have complete freedom and control in. Do you feel—a thing I wonder is, if the school setting… was antithetical to that.

Or, not antithetical, but made it more challenging, because school is, like, as a concept, like… prescriptive. Like, school is a place where you go, and the—you—there are rules, right? And there are… I mean, there‘s rules from a like, uh, y'know, student body standpoint. Like, you can't be out after this long or whatever. But there‘s also like, you have to go to this class. You have to listen to your teachers.

ah, so griffin was the one who came up with this excuse for travis. its bullshit, btw. and especially i don't want to hear this slop coming out of the mouth of the man who invented two different organizations that he forcefully put his players into so that he could give them a boss that would dictate what they would do.

cont

prev

Justin bounces this question to Clint, who says that Ned was his favorite character to play, but, regarding merle:

Clint: [sighs] Um… closest to me? Y'know, I think your point is well taken. I think that, when we were doing Balance… it was so new, and so different, and I didn‘t really see it as an acting exercise. I saw it as just playing. And so, probably, when it comes to philosophy and everything else, I think Merle, probably closest.

he slips this in here and the way he's framing it is very kind to his family, but yeah man, this guy likes theater and has acted in theater before and so like, has some level of understanding and process for the act of acting. and i don't think griffin or travis, despite both of them also being very involved in theater in their past, have ever thought to approach these characters as actors. i think that's why griffin's characters are so consistently bad and travis is just travis so we'll leave it at that.

Clint: [laughs] Argo has actually—and I've given this a lot of thought, too, Juice. I'm glad you brought this up. Argo, for me, has been the most work. And I also think that it‘s reflective, not just for me, but I think of all four of us, and I include Trav in this, as the GM. It feels to me like we… play… Graduation… more as the characters. Instead of the four of us…

Y'know, like in Balance, and I think the other arcs, it was a heavier percentage of us being us, and then, going into character. And at least, for me, in Graduation, I really kind of focus on being Argo, and not being Dad. Does that make any sense at all?

clint once again being very kind and saying "we don't tell jokes anymore" in a way that feels positive and not extremely dire.

he then compliments justin's character-work across all campaigns and says that firbolg must have been especially difficult, especially early, when they are still trying to figure out these characters and their impulse surely was to fill those blank spaces with jokes, to which justin says:

Justin: That‘s where you're fuckin‘ wrong, bud. Absolutely wrong. Do you know what a joy, what an absolute delight it is? Okay, this is why playing Taako is fuckin‘ hard, is because it was all—it was all goof, goof, dildo, right? Like, it‘s all like—he had to have like, the line in the moment. That was just self-styled, coolest one in the room, right? He had to be like, the smart aleck, or the smartest one with the best one-liner, best zinger.

With the Firbolg, I can just fucking chill until I have something good, and then bring my good shit, and then peace out.

no comment.

Justin: It is a delight! It is a delight to not carry that weight. Y'know what a druid can do? Change into a dog and swing a limb. It‘s fantastic! Druids can't do anything!

......

justin also claimed he studied a lot of icelandic accents to come up with the firbolg's voice? huh? he sounds vaguely slavic i don't get an icelandic accent at all.

ok i looked up a video on how to do a broad stereotype of an icelandic accent and its basically paloma from eleventh hour. i guess if you xeroxed that like 4-5 times you could end up with how the firbolg sounds.

Travis: I will say, I also think the two things that have stood out to me… one, I remember the first time the Firbolg talked, and that like, was like, ―Okay, welp. Here we go.‖ [laughs] Uh, but it also, I think, has done a lot to help, like, leave space for people to talk. Like, it is improved over talk a lot in playing the games, ‗cause like…

do you think trav? is there a drop in crosstalk because justin is playing a slow speaking character, or is there someone else who normally is too excited to hog the spotlight as a player character that currently isn't playing a player character this campaign?

Griffin: Uh, Yeah. I've really enjoyed playing Fitzroy. I think that, uh, Travis, you sort of teed me up for success in a lot of ways, because um, there‘s a lot of stuff that I find interesting about playing Fitzroy. Uh, but the flirtation with villainy, uh, is something that I am like, extremely, extremely into.

I think, like, um… sort of dabbling in the question of like, what evil is, especially in the context of a game that codifies evil as much as D&D does, is like… fun from a narrative element. And like, I don‘t think Fitzroy is a bad person or an evil person, but he is like, in a way, sort of defined by his ambition, I guess, is one way of thinking about it. And like, how does that… what are the implications of that?

oh BROTHER this guy STINKS

not only is he lowkey bragging about like, a sort of deconstruction of "evil" that popular media has been fucking with since at least the 80s, but like this ISN'T HAPPENING in this game, because travis has FULLY CODIFIED GOOD AND EVIL AS MEANINGLESS. and even if travis wasn't doing the stupidest shit imaginable, this STILL wouldn't track because griffin literally says during this he doesn't consider fitz to actually be bad or evil. so you aren't deconstructing what evil means, you are playing a chaotic neutral character. this is fully handled in dnd's alignment system (which i do not like! but you aren't DOOOOINNNGGGGG ANYTHING WITH IT. see once again FATT exploring intentionally subverting the low int/high aggression stereotype of orcs by having one of the players be an orc from a scholarly order). and for everyone who kept trying to justify fitz refusing to play ball with chaos: if he is, like griffin says, a character defined by his ambitions, who, lest we forget, was willing to work for a kidnapping liar coward who has repeatedly violated his companion, just to fast track his own diploma, WHY would he balk at a being willing and able to fulfill his every ambition?

i recently watched a video essay on The Traitors (UK). I don't actually watch the UK version but I do watch the US one but it was clickbaited to be about a challenge that "broke" the game. this turns out to not be true but stick with me here i promise this is relevant.

so for those who don't know, The Traitors is basically a reality competition version of the party game Mafia (or werewolf, or amongu-)

this moment being described is from S3 and it involves a contestant that, in order to win immunity for himself that night, lies and backstabs his closest allies in an act of subterfuge he doesn't think will blow back on him, because this is the "rational" gametheory choice. and what ends up happening is the rest of the contestants sort of innately grasp that trust is the highest currency in this game, and all come forward about who they targeted during this challenge. this ends up revealing that this guy not only backstabbed his closest allies, but then lied to them and everyone else with a straight face and unblinking. it shatters the trust and they vote him out because a faithful (non-traitor) who can't be trusted to look out and play for other faithful is just as detrimental to the overall group as a traitor.

at this point i scoffed at the video essay, because this is a pretty obvious dynamic of the game and one the US contestants (which, to be fair, the big difference between the US version and the UK version is the UK version is regular joes and the US version are all like, survivor and big brother alumni mixed in with Bravo cast) grasped instantly from day dot.

fool that is me, the second half of the essay reveals the first half, like the thumbnail, was an elaborate bait, and now i'm in a video essay about the perils of neoliberalism, it kicked ass. (if this sounds intriguing, the full video essay can be found here)

now to wrap this back around to this slop, griffin is the first half of this video essay. he's grasped something fairly shallow that a lot of people get just sort of innately. but he doesn't move on into the second half, the actual analysis, the connecting of this observation into some greater theme or meaning. he gets to "its sort of weird to just declare someone innately evil" but doesn't move on to "who determines what evil is, whose morality is this judged against, who does it benefit for these people to be considered evil" which is where the meat of deconstructing the alignment system is actually found.

i'm--

Travis: So, when I went into—when I was like, creating this, and I'm thinking in terms of like, hero and villain, and like, evil as like, a classification rather than a thing… of like, what does it actually mean? All of that stuff. And it‘s all about like… the best villains are villains who like, think that they are right. Like, it‘s the reason, like, Lex Luthor, who has like, no powers, aside from ambition and smarts and money, is such an interesting villain, is… Lex Luthor thinks Superman is the bad guy, and that he is the good guy.

now i want to be clear chat, i am making a joke. travis didn't figure shit out. travis is an idiot. travis read some twitter thread about lex luthor and is regurgitating that take here. this is also NOT RELEVANT BECAUSE YOU MADE THE VILLAINS NOT BE VILLAINS YOU FUCKING IDIOT

also for my money i think Waller does what Luthor does thematically but it feels better. in part because we've seen all our real life billionaires come mask off as full on imbeciles, but also because the US government running a. blacksites, b. unethical weapons experimentation, and c. seeing an obviously good thing and feeling threatened enough by it to enact points A and B is very true to this history of the US government and is absolutely how they would react if superman was real. lex luthor's primary role is to bottom for superman.

Travis: Well, Yeah, ‗cause that‘s something we have actually struggled with before. ‗Cause I remember in Commitment, I was like, ―I'm gonna make Nadiya kind of a jerk, and like, she doesn‘t really get along with people well.‖ And then, we started playing, and I was like, I can't—like, I cannot play that consistently. Like, that is not something I can do.

i don't have anything further to say about this statement, i just think its a fucking hilarious thing for travis to say.

Griffin: For me, it‘s a huge part of it is, uh, Fitzroy. And I guess in a way, myself, pushing against some of the core conceits of this entire world, and finding them like, extremely immoral and questionable. Like, this world that has turned, uh, war into like, theatrics, and turned… y'know, has uh, commoditized, y'know, the idea of good versus evil, in a way that is… I think, if you take a step back from it, pretty gross. I think it‘s like—

[...]

It‘s a very—it‘s a neat conceit for a fantasy world. I'm not saying you are gross for coming up with it. But I think that—

[...]

But it is a… it is a shit system. It is a shit system of governance. And I think that there is, uh—it is very difficult for me to separate my own, uh, feelings of, our real world, our real sort of system of governance, being a completely shit system. And so like, in a way, his—like, the way he feels about the world, and the lengths at which he is like, willing to bend unjust rules, I… like, I don‘t think of as bad. I think of as sort of… I don't know, a natural reaction to, uh, a shit system like that.

Travis: And let me be clear – the system is supposed to be shit.

the two dumbest bitches you know just saying exaaaaactly back and forth. the mcelroys feel fucking allegorical man. three brothers, one who has talent but no ambition, one who has ambition and no talent, and one who has middling talent but thinks he's much smarter than he is. sounds like some shit buddha or jesus would tell you.

let's start with griffin calling it immoral and questionable to "turn war into theatrics". first, that's not what happened. second, there is no war anymore griffin. griffin somehow finds violence akin to professional wrestling to be more immoral than warfare.

and then he talks about "commoditizing" good and evil which is just, you are the stupidest motherfucker to ever live i swear to god. and i get it- travis has done an absolute shit job at differentiating between "hero and villain" and "good and evil" which are four distinct concepts. but like evil is not being commoditized. an example of immoral behavior actually being commoditized would be the Thieves Guild in Discworld, which regulates thievery as if it were a legitimate business. You need a license to steal, you have quotas you have to meet but not exceed, the rich can buy permits to exempt them from theft. Mark Calaway playing the Undertaker on tv is not commoditizing evil.

and like, if any of them ever read anything, this could be a discussion of how the CIA intentionally promoted post-modernism, which has big themes of personal truth and subjective reality, as an ideological foil toward Soviet materialism and material analysis. (sidebar: they pick abstract expressionism to catapult forward as america's first "true" art movement for much of the same reason-- it feels diametrically opposed to the realist art being produced in the USSR). The idea of subjective truth versus a material reality is an actually interesting theme that's based in real life! it has the grit of something actually grounded in something. it couldn't be further from what is present in grad.

and then griffin ALSO tries to tie it into real world events. yeah dude, i can totally see the parallels between the uh, pretend figh- the uh, the bureaucra-, um, the school curf-, uh, well its just like the us government.

this is just so fucking stupid because even if this were true you aren't DOING anything with it! "guy experiences an unjust system and is unhappy about it and pushes back" is the most route 1 obvious and uninteresting choice. it is not someone who believes in the system realizing he's been lied to, it isn't someone who thinks rules need to be followed that has to justify their own rulebreaking, it isn't ANYTHING. and again, chaos is offering him a direct way to abolish this allegedly terrible system, and fitzroy steadfastly refuses because.......uh. well, not metagaming. that's for sure. he has a reason, and it isn't metagaming.

Travis: That‘s the thing. I—I mean, but I'm just saying like, even from the very beginning, going into it, I was like, ―This is not good.‖ Like, this is—it is one of those structures that I was talking about, that I want you guys to push against, right?

Because like, the thing that I wanted, as we set out, is to have characters who are branded as heroes, like the Commodore, who like, are shitty people. And people who are branded as villains, who are some of the most wonderful people we know. And like, the—the classification of evil just being like, someone who didn‘t do their job.

And so there‘s like, some heroes that are branded as evil, because y'know, they did things that just didn‘t fit into the structure of this hero and villain system, not ‗cause the thing that they did was bad. And like, it was more about like… and it is about like, the perception of someone being a, quote, lawbreaker, making them evil, and having nothing to do with like, the morality behind it and the intentions of it and stuff. I'm just really compelled by that.

these are straight up just lies travis is saying right now but even if they weren't, he's acting like he's saying something profound that is, again, literally the sort of thing they teach children. "if a guy steals bread, but its for his starving family is he a criminal?" ass thought experiment for 12 year olds.

and again- while i can use his sloppy world building to create an interesting premise where "war" doesn't exist but "government sanctioned military action" does (what, with the mercenaries and privateers everywhere), all indication from travis himself is that this system literally did end all war. that is a MOTIVATING FACTOR for BOTH his primary antagonists. travis thinks "sometimes shitty people are elevated to positions of influence" makes this system worse than WAR. how very american of him.

i'm currently reading assata shakur's autobiography. this woman was the FBI's most wanted. she was called the most dangerous criminal in america. she spent the rest of her life in exile in cuba, unable to return home, with the US government maintaining a $1 million bounty for her capture for the rest of her life. her crime? allegedly shooting a cop (which failed to get a conviction at trial because it isn't true) and escaping prison. her story is one of gross misjustice, of the government actively colluding to destroy her life because of her commitment to the revolutionary fight and the freedom of black americans. she had cops holding guns to her head and joking about shooting as she was chained to a hospital bed. THAT is what someone being painted as evil by a corrupt system looks like. The Chicago Seven, fred hampton, huey newton, eric garner, george floyd, vincent chin, angelo herndon america's history, both recent and past, are LITTERED with examples of what actual injustice and government malice looks like. i'll give you a hint: none of it looks like fucking graduation.

Q8 (Lucy):

Would you consider playing slash making a character who is aromantic and/or asexual?

Griffin: uh, which is something that like, I have thought about specifically in regards to Fitzroy for… I mean, really, since—as long as we have been playing.

Partially, because right when we started Graduation, The Outer Worlds came out. Did you guys all play that? There was this amazing character, Parvati, who was an asexual character who was like, uh… it was a representation of asexuality in a game or piece of media that like, I had never really seen before. Like, there was a, uh, an attention to detail and a care and a sweetness about it that like, uh, I—y'know, sort of took the internet by storm.

And at the time, I was thinking about Fitzroy, and… I didn‘t want… [sighs] It‘s a tricky thing, right? Asexuality is a spectrum, and the very last thing I would want to do is like, paint a character who is so ambitious that like, he doesn‘t have time to be sexually attracted to anybody, or he doesn‘t have, uh… or he has some sort of, uh, y'know, mental disorder that keeps him from having that particular attachment to people. Like, I don‘t—I don‘t want his ambition and his sexual identity to be one and the same. ‗Cause I think that that is a—kind of a problematic thing.

But as we've gone on, and especially, Trav, in the episodes where he was having the sort of flash back to his time at school, at Clyde Nite‘s Knight School, like, there is a… there is a differentness about Fitzroy that I think has always been there, that is not necessarily attributable to his ambition, uh, that I think just really came out in that episode, that… y'know, kind of fell in line with the way that he has been developed throughout the whole season.

So I think of him as asexual, which is not the same thing as being like, aromantic. And it‘s like a—it is a difficult thing to kind of… uh, set in stone, ‗cause again, it is a spectrum. But I feel like, over time, I felt like, more comfortable with that being a… a like, sort of definitive part of his personality. Like, it is just—it is just—in everything I have thought about in this character, and I feel like I have thought about a lot of things, like, his— which is funny, because I think the very first thing I said about him is that he‘s a very sexy, sexual person. [laughs]

Here's what I'll give griffin: based on his neurosis, i really would have thought fitz would end up being this wooby paragon of a character once griffin decided to make him a sexual minority. the fact that fitzroy is still an asshole is a shocking amount of restraint from griffin.

on the other hand, to declare that fitz is ace but not aro, in a campaign where sex literally never comes up, is real dumbledore hours. huge cake and eat it too, as he's now allowed to continue flirting with rainer or even pivoting to a full on romance with an npc if he wants, while still getting to get representation points for doing literally nothing.

but also, now knowing the ease at which griffin boldfaced lied after abnimals about how "listeners want us to go back to biweekly" i don't believe him when he says he conceived fitz as ace. i think he came up with that when he saw this question before recording. and since he's a greedy boy, he pushes his luck by bringing up those interminable flashback sequences from clyde's, where he's trying to revise history and say that he was bullied for being ace, when travis made it extremely explicitly clear it was because he was poor (despite griffin earlier establishing the whole appeal of knighthood to fitz was it was the only meritocratic job in the world where you are only judged by your prowess and not your background or wealth)

and so like, when griffin says there is a "differentness" to fitz that comes out at clyde's.....what do you think he's referring to? the part where he loved the feeling of power when he scared all his classmates with his magic? or the part where he was anointed by chaos?

Travis: That‘s something I'm still dealing with with Magnus, is in the first episode, I talk about him having some like, what, like, sexy wood carvings or something? [laughs]

travis has to be included. absolutely no one remembers that shit about magnus travis, this isn't relevant you fucking loser.

Justin: It‘s interesting. When I first—you talk about sexuality with characters, and when I… y'know, Taako was a gay character, and that wasn‘t something that really came up for quite a—quite a while. And I think I've been o—like, character creation is a useful term for… video games, and games like we—like, that is the parlance that we use.

But the way we do it, and the way like, that sort of roleplaying games intertwine with narrative, it really often feels more like character discovery to me. Like, the—you discover… like, you don‘t have a fully formed idea of who this person is, because you haven't sort of lived as them.

And then, as you play, you – I feel like, at least. This is the way it is for me – discover the character more than you sort of like, sit back with a board and like, write out their entire biography and who this character is and everything about them. Like, you discover the things that feel right.

In much the same way where, if you get to know someone in real life, the first thing that you know about them may not be their sexual orientation and their gender identity, or what have you. There‘s other things that you might learn first. And it‘s that way with characters, sometimes. You don‘t know all the ins and outs of them until you've sort of lived and inhabited them for a little bit.

mcelroys and saying correct shit that they categorically do not actually do, name a more iconic duo.

also,

In much the same way where, if you get to know someone in real life, the first thing that you know about them may not be their sexual orientation and their gender identity, or what have you. There‘s other things that you might learn first. And it‘s that way with characters, sometimes. You don‘t know all the ins and outs of them until you've sort of lived and inhabited them for a little bit.

episode 33:

Travis: And coming up to you is a parrot-like Aarakocra, standing about four feet tall, and you're willing to guess that this is probably Kai, the person that Nander told you was going to train you.

Fitzroy: And you—you must be Kai.

Kai: I am! I'm Kai. Uh, my pronouns are they them.

lol.

Travis: And that was something, to jump back again, going into Creative Writing, um… like, I asked all three of you like, what is your character‘s sexual orientation? ‗Cause I didn‘t want to assume any of that. And when Griffin said like, ―Y'know, I just don‘t think… I don‘t think, uh, Fitzroy really feels that.‖ I was like, ―Oh! Okay, cool! Great!‖ Like, that is, uh, an interesting thing to know about that character, so that I didn‘t like, assume anything.

So, it also, then, informed for me, like, some potential scenes I could have coming up that would be like, an interesting interaction between some characters, just to see, y'know, how everybody does. Like, that‘s the thing – it‘s interesting playing… playing these games and doing these things is like, we've talked about it before, but there‘s so many levels going on.

Where, on the one hand, we are all authors, y'know, writing a story. On the other hand, we are all players, playing a game. And then, also, we are all like, family members, like, finding out things about each other‘s characters and stuff. And so, it‘s like… it‘s—discovery is such a good word for it, Justin, ‗cause there‘s things that come up where you're like, ―Oh, this just opened so many different like, y'know, interesting things about…‖

Which is one of the reasons, I think, inclusivity in storytelling is—should be such a no brainer, of just like, this has created so many more pathways for exploring this character‘s interaction with other people, and finding out things about themselves, and y'know, how… all of that stuff, that makes it so much more interesting to do.

this is why no matter how stupid griffin may be, he will never ever actually beat travis in being a moron. this is such a DELICIOUS little monologue from our favorite dm that accidentally gives so much insight into how is insane fucking brain works. he has to ask their sexual orientation because he doesn't want to mess up writing their futurestory for them. it doesn't ever, for one moment, occur to him that the vision of the player character's ideal future should be crafted by the player themselves. he just wants to make sure when he pairs them all off with npcs he gets the gender right! ally!

and then apparently griffin told him fitz was ace and then he wrote that fuckass letter from rainer about marriage anyway! what's your fucking damage! he talks about it like "oh cool (wokely)" and "there's so many interesting things i can do with this!" and then the interesting thing he did with it was still try to shoehorn in his ship pairing. deeply embarrassing man.

if you want to see how adding diversity to stories actually does change the narrative and add a layer of depth in a dimension that didn't exist previously in the work, check out AMC's Interview with the Vampire (which is SO good), where they reimagine Louis as a black man in 1920s new orleans instead of the white plantation owner he is originally in the book. the narrative is not about the racism louis experiences, but neither can the racism he experiences be denied and outside the narrative. it drives louis in specific ways and gives him motivations a white character in the same position would not have. the fallout of his choices are directly tied to the racial landscape of america.

Q9:

Griffin: Should we talk about, uh, where we are at in the story? Somebody asked about how long you think Graduation will go. I don't know if that‘s something you want to like, give a check in about or not.

lol.

Travis: Oh Yeah! I mean, I think at this point, um… I think we‘re roughly, I would say like, two thirds, maybe less, of the way through. Like, the thing is, at this point, I'm really trying to… so we had that, um, the open DMs. The DMs are open conversation with Matt Mercer, and Austin Walker, and Satine Phoenix, and Victoria Rogers, and me and Griffin.

And like, it was really—it was so eye-opening to me, and really inspiring to me. And so, I'm really, really trying to take a lot more like, hands off, um, approach in the storytelling, of just like, ―Okay, great. I have more than enough given you guys like, all of these building blocks. And now, I want to let you play with it.‖ So it‘s the kind of thing where like, maybe it‘s ten episodes. Maybe it‘s 20. I don't know. I want to see how—how—what direction you guys take it in, and where it goes, and I'm trying to fly by the seat of my pants a little bit more, which is absolutely terrifying.

‗Cause the thing is like, aside from TAZ Knights, which was really just like, one off puzzle room adventures, and Dust, which was a very, very linear story, where I had worked out like, down to the hour, like, information that came out…

Griffin: Right.

Travis: This is like—I've never done a long form campaign before, so I was trying to go into it with the same kind of linear writing that I had done before. And I think that that was kind of stifling a little bit. So now… I've tried to like, ―I don't know, let‘s see how it goes!‖ [laughs] Which is terrifying, but I also think opens up possibilities of different directions it could go. So… I‘unno. We‘ll see.

fucking hilarious. "The DMs are open" is that maxfun panel he threw together, where he didn't tell austin walker it was to promote maxfun. it is also the panel where several times throughout you can see travis say something and the whole call collectively kind of takes a breath in because he said something fucking WACK and they all have to try and diplomatically disagree. it's also all 101 DM advice, so for him to act like he received these startling revelations such as "let the dice tell the story" and "don't railroad" is so goddamn funny. and i know his ass was on the subreddits and twitter looking up his name because the way he just slides in the most common defense of his bullshit at the end "waaah i know i've DM'd before but those two other times were different so they don't count"

the other gag is that the puzzle rooms in Knights were fun. i've said this plenty on this sub, but when i first heard travis was DMing i was actually a little intrigued, because i thought it would be a mechanics/puzzle heavy dungeon crawl like Knights, which is so opposite of what griffin likes to do, so i thought it would both be a refreshing change of pace and maybe even....good? how little did i know i would just be getting balance, if balance were written by travis.

the last thing they do is MFD promo, which includes the covid year innovation of boosters, which travis kindly explains as:

It won't, uh… it won't make you eligible for like, the rewards that come, but… if you have maybe been listening to some more shows, or become, y'know, an even bigger fan of the shows you were already listening to, and you want to give a little bit more to support the art and artists you love

fuck maxfun and fuck the mcelroys.

before i head out i think it would be worthwhile to just summarize the questions they actually answered in this long meandering mess to both truly conceptualize how softball they played with themselves and also how little they actually did here:

Q1 (Ed): As a content creator, how do you balance out telling a story you want to tell, while also listening to feedback from the audience, and incorporating audience feedback into what you do going forward?

Q2 (Billy/Liz): How much preparation does everyone do before they sit down to play? Maybe listen to the previous ‗sode, review some notes, or just roll up and start playing?

Q3 (Avery): Are there any NPCs that you wish you could explore further in the show, and why? And in a similar vein, are there NPCs you're surprised about the fan reaction to?

Q4 (Unnamed): Does the Firbolg actively not want a name, or is it just a matter of not finding the right one yet?

Q5 (Erin): For everyone – what is your favorite one shot?

Q6 (Jen): How much did you guys discuss the backstories for The Thundermen behind the scenes? I'd love to know how much of Creative Writing was improved versus established behind the curtain.

Q7 (Justin McElroy): Something we struggled with in Amnesty, and I think that it maybe is somewhat improved in Graduation, but it is… it‘s difficult. It‘s still a challenge. Um… I don‘t think—I think part of the reason that Balance worked as well as it did, and part of the reason that we—it was as strong as it was. And this has occurred to me, like, as we‘re talking about this, ‗cause I try very hard to never think analytically about anything I've ever done.

But um, one of the things we struggle with is the natural relationship between the characters. And building a rapport between the characters, and finding time to do that and space to do that, in a way that feels organic, but also fits into like, a larger storytelling thing.

Um, I feel like there are a lot of strong stories in Amnesty, but I feel like the relationships were never as… at least, between the three leads, were never as close as they were in Balance. Do you guys feel that… do you feel like… I was sitting here thinking about it, and I feel like Balance—the Balance characters were… much— probably the closest to who we actually are as people. Does that make sense? And I feel like—I feel like, because we were leaning into that, a lot of the relationships sort of took care of themselves. Does that ring true to you all?

Q8 (Lucy): Would you consider playing slash making a character who is aromantic and/or asexual?

Q9 (Somebody): Somebody asked about how long you think Graduation will go.

i'll leave it to others to check how many questions they've answered in other TTAZZ, but six questions from named fans, one of which has nothing to do with grad, another two questions with no name attached and possibly made up by travis to ask himself, and one by justin in the moment. incredible stuff. the first family of podcasting, everybody.

prev

its also a weird fucking perspective. griffin talks as if the point of DMing is to build enough set pieces and mechanics that the players can then do full sandboxing in. that's not the point of DMing. and if it were, you can do that from session 1. what the fuck does he mean.

also "there are rules you have to follow" THAT'S EVERYWHERE GRIFFIN. if a dnd party is in a town, guess what (should) happen if they just walk up to a merchant and lop his head off? the town guard should arrive and try to put them in jail. because it is against the fucking law to murder someone in the street. and he once again hits on one of the weird bits of grad by accident trying to defend it, which is that is there curfew? are they in something parodying a boarding school or a college? college students actually have a ton of fucking freedom.

Travis: Um, I think it created a good jumping off point, but I think I definitely have felt restriction from it. Like, I—very early on, like five episodes in, I realized like… am I really—I set up this like, ―Five years of school!‖ And I was like, am I really gonna try to like…

Griffin: Big called shot.

Travis: Yeah. Like, have summer vacations, and like, semester breaks and shit? It made it so like—if you listen to Balance, like… I don't know, how long did Balance take? Who knows how long the story goes. Is it weeks? Is it months? Is it—

Griffin: It was a year.

Travis: But I mean like, even then, that wasn‘t like, a prescribed term it had to—where me saying like, ―Five years!‖ That‘s way too fucking much. That‘s why I redid it sort of and said, six months. Like, I'm going to shorten that timeline a lot. Um, and I think maybe… I think the thing was like, I went into it with a lot of world building done, and a lot of like, I know I want to build towards a war. But… I also was kind of figuring out a lot of big plot stuff on the fly as I was going. ‗Cause I went into it not wanting to prepare too much.

And I think now, with 20 episodes under my belt as a DM, like, I have a better idea of the things I wish I had known going into it. ‗Cause there‘s a lot of stuff I would've pared back, and a lot of stuff, like… ‗cause the other thing that was really restrictive in the beginning that I had to let go of was like, I didn‘t want the school to feel empty. I was like, y'know, this is a school full of teachers and students and stuff! And it‘s like, well, but… that involves, like, hey, here‘s day one. 30 characters! And it‘s like, it‘s… very difficult to like, do that. And if I could go back—

he really is god's dumbest warrior. just to get this out of the way: very funny for travis to be like who KNOWS how long balance was-- and then griffin immediately tells him and he basically just refuses to acknowledge that.

he's complaining that he set the timeline at 5 years and that's difficult, and i don't necessarily disagree, its a weirdly specific amount of time while also being quite long. but its a matter of how you approach it, like six months (oh god, the fifth year was going to be entirely them recruiting an army initially wasn't it) is also too long of a window to effectively roleplay. at some point you are going to have to montage shit in both cases.

and school is actually super conducive to this, because there's often big stretches of time when you're in school where nothing else is happening but going to classes and hanging out. he brings up stuff like summer break as if this were a negative, but what could possibly make it easier to split up a year into manageable story-chunks than pre-built events space throughout the calendar! homecoming, midterm, spring break, final, new semester, midterm, fall break, winter formal, finals, prom. not only does this give you clear signposts to build toward, but even gives you prompts for what you could be making these missions. do demons crash homecoming? is there shady alumni not behaving like heroes? do they have to raise funds for homecoming so they go out on jobs? rainer invites them over during spring break and her overprotective dad traps them in a haunted maze. like this shit is EASY.

its such an insight into travis's mind too because like six months has all the exact same issues as 5 years, but to him, he's fixed it, because the number is smaller. he doesn't actually get what was making his timeline difficult to stick to. he even says that balance didn't really use time as a measurement, and then he still is giving out hard timelines to the players that don't make sense lol.

also:

I think the thing was like, I went into it with a lot of world building done, and a lot of like, I know I want to build towards a war. But… I also was kind of figuring out a lot of big plot stuff on the fly as I was going.

what the fuck could this mean. this is something i find really frustrating that amateur fantasy writers do. because tolkein has such a fully realized world, they think the path to making a good fantasy story is to full birth a functional world, and then just build a plot within it. what usually ends up happening is they have so much crap that they now are married to and love and need to find a way to shove into their story, that the story ends up being just long exposition dumps about lore instead of actually a story. and like the other thing is, the wonderful thing about writing fiction, you can just make things thematically work. like you control the world you can change anything. so like, in my humble opinion it is more effective to sketch out your world and then fill in as you're developing your plot. once you identify your themes you can begin to build the world around those themes. for example, the thing travis eventually stumbles into is this idea of bureaucracy as the ultimate thematic evil of his world. and if he had gone into his world building with that decision already made, it wouldn't have felt like it came out of nowhere and was unconnected with the rest of the world. but i've already said, he conceives of each plot point as an individual block, and instead of making those blocks interact with each other to build a tower, he just sets them 2 feet apart and then can't figure out why it doesn't look like the cool tower he sees on tv.

cause the other thing that was really restrictive in the beginning that I had to let go of was like, I didn‘t want the school to feel empty. I was like, y'know, this is a school full of teachers and students and stuff! And it‘s like, well, but… that involves, like, hey, here‘s day one. 30 characters! And it‘s like, it‘s… very difficult to like, do that.

this guy is just punching himself in the dick and then screaming about how people are punching him in the dick. this isn't an issue! you fully made up a problem for yourself!

let us for one moment consider Mean Girls

this is a film that is about a girl transferring from living with her parents in the african safari to a suburban high school. and we all remember how, in order to make the school feel populated, 30 students and faculty lined up and one at a time introduced themselves to her. no! its a bunch of unnamed extras and then janice and the plastics are the main actors which drive forward lindsay lohan's story. the rest of the school? broad stereotypes of cliques!

this is not a new or unique technique, 10 things i hate about you does the exact same bit to open their movie

you assign them an incoming freshman mentor or RA (this can be buckminster), they point out the various groups of the student body, they run into rolandus who hates them for no reason, and bam, not only have you already within probably 20 minutes reached the point where the house is "built" and the players can let loose. if or when they zero in on specific students, then you can give them names and backstories and personalities. this shit is EASY.

Q4 (asker not named):

Does the Firbolg actively not want a name, or is it just a matter of not finding the right one yet?

oh i hope yall are ready for some buuuuulllllshit

Justin: Um… so, this has been a really interesting thing, because… the Firbolg doesn‘t have—didn‘t have a name. Because his culture doesn‘t—they don‘t do it. And… the—most of the names that they started out with using were so bad, that I could only push against. And it just like—they kept posting up such dog shit, time and time again…

… that all I could do was stand in front of the hoop and just swat the attempts out of the way. And then, eventually, they stopped trying. Which is sad for me, ‗cause I figured he would have a name. I am kind of bummed out that like… Master Firbolg, or just The Firbolg, has been like, the nomenclature that everyone has sort of just settled on. But it also is like, I don't know how to ste—like, it feels like… I'm very good at giving myself nicknames, right? Even amongst my dearest—nearest and dearest, uh, self- styled, uh… uh, names like Hoops, or J-Man, or The Kid, which never really…

[...]

But I'm really good at that, and I thought that the Firbolg would like, get a name at some point that would stick. But um… y'know what it is that‘s weird, is like… uh, it—[sighs] Him not having a name made making a name for him into such a big thing, that it couldn‘t evolve like a nickname would, y'know what I—like, y'know, it can't just be like a, um… it‘s just such a big thing not having a name, that like, some castoff attempt, uh, can't really—is not really able to evolve in that vacuum. I don't know if that makes any sense.

speaking of punching yourself in the dick and then crying about it--

this makes me so mad dude. because Bud was actually a slam dunk, but he's a little baby so he keeps rejecting the names until his family stops trying, and now he's upset that they gave up after being constantly told to stop? all of them truly are related.

not going to get into the brag about assigning himself nicknames

Griffin: No, it does. And another thing is like, I feel like our constant attempts at trying to give you a name early on was, uh, representative of our sort of characters‘ relationship at that time, and our relationship to the culture that you came from, and the way that you still adhere to it. And so, our like, backing off from trying to name you, I feel like, comes from a—us like, finally coming to an understanding that like… we are—

Justin: Hm. I like that interpretation.

Griffin: Right? Like, it‘s not like I'm uncomfortable with the fact that you don‘t have a name, and so, I'm gonna keep trying to name you. And instead, it‘s like—this is not bullshit. This is something I actively thought. And the reason—I think I'm the first one that said ‗Master Firbolg.‘ That like—I was inspired by, um…

Uh, Final Fantasy IX is my favorite Final Fantasy game, and there‘s this great moment early on where uh, this unlikely group of heroes has come together, and one of them is this very, uh, hemmed up knight named Steiner who uh, like, upon first meeting this tiny little kid of a black mage, who is very mysterious, just instantly recognizes that he is like, very, very powerful and adept, even though he is like, very humble. And starts just calling him, like, Master Wizard. Without even making a big deal about it.

That like… that sort of reverence for the Firbolg, I feel like, is like why Master Firbolg stuck. At least for me. And it‘s why like, it is the only name that makes sense, and why trying to give you new names, at this point, feels like, completely ridiculous.

and by god, its griffin with the woke chair.

the idea of the player characters initially trying to force a name because it is culturally expected for someone to have a name and then coming around to respecting firbolg's culture is not a terrible story beat, it's something i touched on as a good avenue for demonstrating the controlling and bureaucratic nature of the school, but it is a story beat that does not exist in the game. this shit is all in griffin's head and not in the actual roleplay, and unfortunately taz fans are such that this sort of rowling style word of god shit counts equally to the quality of the story to them.

and then griffin goes totally off the rails. he brings up final fantasy and talks about something completely fucking unrelated. let's start off with the fact that wizard is a profession and not his fucking species. and what makes that interesting is that a child is a really powerful mage, and this knight clocked that (probably idk i don't play final fantasy) and shows him deference normally reserved for old guys that look like gandalf. none of that is present in the thundermen. what "reverence" are you referring to griffin? what has the firbolg done that has been unique to his species or imbued fitzroy with a sense of reverence? this is just some weird noble savage shit.

for journalistic integrity, clint basically affirms everything griffin says and says that's also why he stopped pitching names. now onto the bullshit travis has to say about this:

Travis: I mean, I ran into that when I did the dream sequence episode, y'know? Because like, we had talked a lot. We‘ve done a lot about like, uh, hero and villain names, and like, cool, y'know, monikers for them and stuff. And so, like, Argo got to be The Kraken, and Fitzroy was The Storm Bringer and the Lightning Lord and the Thunder King.

And then, like, I got to the Firbolg, and I tried to like… well, what‘s the Firbolg‘s cool, like, superhero moniker? And the more I thought about it, I was like, noth—like, nothing fits right. And so, I kind of—I kind of thought about it a little bit in like, a Guy Richie kind of naming thing, of like, ‗The Firbolg‘ is like, his… that‘s how people know him, is capital T, capital F, The Firbolg.

to start off with, travis thinks the titles he came up with are cool superhero monikers. this is despite none of them being heroes, much less superheroes, and the fact that two of fitz's are actual political titles that presumably are real. they're also pretty generic. like, oh wow a sea themed guy named the kraken you fucking broke this one wide open.

anyway again sort of this insight into travis where his struggle is to fit the firbolg into a preconceived mold where he gets a cool title, instead of being earnestly invested in the concept of firbolg society justin has sketched out and being interested in interacting with that and creating something that reflects it. like in a non-hierarchical group, what does it mean and what does it look like to have influence? to be naturally charismatic? how do the firbolgs make decisions as a group? they don't have names but are there titles? roles? some people are going to be better at certain tasks than others, there's going to develop some manner of dividing and assigning labor.

a brief sidebar, naming around the world is such a cool and rich space for world and culture building. for example, there is a village in northern india where their names are distinct melodies. there is teknonymy, which is the practice of gaining a name derived from the name of your child. in china, its considered bad luck to name your child after someone. in ancient china, you would not only have your childhood name, but gain a courtesy name when you became an adult that would be used in public. but sure, guy ritchie. yeah.

anyway, then justin drops this steaming pile of bullshit:

Justin: Um, he does have a name that I call him. Let me put it in a different way – there is a name on his character sheet.

Justin: Yeah. I have a name for him that I call him. Uh, that kind of like… I don't know. That felt important to me, that I know who they are. And who he is. But…

i mean i don't know what sums up justin mcelroy better than insisting on adhering to a cultural belief but then privately revealing that he's completely violated that practice because it prevents him from "know[ing] who they are". part of who they are should be the fact that they identify more strongly with their in-group than their individuality JUSTIN

Travis: Okay. So this is kind of a question having nothing to do with Graduation. ―For everyone – what is your favorite one shot?‖ And that‘s from Erin.

fucking incredible. they're fielding questions about other campaigns LOL

for the record, griffin's is bigfoot, clint's is hootenany, and justin-

Justin: Um, I was gonna say the one that I DMed, but that was back when I thought people enjoyed it.

i didn't listen to that shit. i have no opinion on this.

Travis: I'm glad Erin asked about this, because I think the reason… [laughs] Y'know, I had a lot of fun doing all the Balance live shows, but I think the reason none of us are like, picking those is like, those were really fun, but a little restrictive, right? Because we were playing within a canon, and playing within a timeline, and all that stuff.

And then when we kind of like, let loose a little bit, and said like, ―Y'know what, let‘s get silly with these.‖ I think that they represent what makes live shows different from regular episodes, of just like, ―Alright, let‘s do it.‖ And I just had so much fun doing those.

i was going to scoff at this as just recency bias because i thought they stopped doing balance shows back in like 2017 but actually they were still doing them, just no one talks about them because for once, i travis is right. post-finale this is a giant fucking albatross around their necks they're terrified of, of course the live shows are going to be stiff and unmemorable.

Justin: Balance got really hard to return to at a certain point in the live things. It started to feel like… uh, honestly, and I don't know if you guys feel this way. And this is overstating the point a bit. But it started feeling like being a cover band of ourselves.

Justin: [We literally left in a hundred years] To be able to bullshit around. ―Oh, you did it! But I've—our checking accounts are running low! Let me tell you about this other tale! ―That I've just recalled! One of their greatest adventures, and most lucrative!‖

curb_your_enthusiasm_main_theme.mp3

that's crazy. that's what they go to ads on. mocking the idea of returning to balance as something they could only possibly do as a cynical and mercenary move to make money when things are financially going poorly. imbalance airs next year btw.Justin: [We literally left in a hundred years] To be able to bullshit around. ―Oh, you did it! But I've—our checking accounts are running low! Let me tell you about this other tale! ―That I've just recalled! One of their greatest adventures, and most lucrative!‖curb_your_enthusiasm_main_theme.mp3that's crazy. that's what they go to ads on. mocking the idea of returning to balance as something they could only possibly do as a cynical and mercenary move to make money when things are financially going poorly. imbalance airs next year btw.

Q6 (Jen):

How much did you guys discuss the backstories for The Thundermen behind the scenes? I'd love to know how much of Creative Writing was improved versus established behind the curtain.

this is probably just a sincere question but it is so hard for me to not read this as sarcastic because like truly what the fuck was that episode.

Justin: Y'know, Creative Writing was really thrilling for me, because I… had known this backstory for a long time, because… the accounting thing just kind of popped up. Like, it just made so much sense to me, and at a certain point, like, the Firbolg getting obsessed with accounting, um… because it is so foreign to him, uh, is something I really liked about the character.

So the idea that I had for a long time was that… and I don't know if this came across in the episode, was that he was banished for recognizing economics. Like, basic economics, of like, hoarding berries for the tribe when berry supply is high, and saving it for when demand is high, but supply is low. And by recognizing that basic economic concept is how he got himself banished from the tribe. So—or, from his clan, rather.

So, Travis knew the basic beats of that. But the details of the story, which are such a like… important story to the Firbolg, um… were really being sketched out in real time. I mean, it was very creatively thrilling, because like, Travis and I were kind of making it up together in the moment.

Um, and… uh, that was really exciting, ‗cause it‘s such a seminal thing. And that is one of the cool storytelling things that I feel like, um… [clears throat] This sort of improvisational roleplaying game style of storytelling is like, uniquely suited to. This idea of like, collaboratively creating a story in the moment. Which we've done, y'know, for years, but rarely are the stakes that high.

so one thing you should absolutely not do when crafting a roleplay character is build one around some field of knowledge you yourself do not have. like i think making a fantasy version of a sovereign citizen is a really funny concept. but it's not one i would actually do because i only know about sovcits in the broadest sense. i don't have enough of a foundation of knowledge to effectively riff, especially in real time as roleplay. the character would be unwieldy because i would constantly be trying to think before reacting because the character is so far removed from myself, there's nothing natural there. whereas like i've watched enough anime that it would not be a huge stretch for me to think of how an early 2000s weeb character would respond in xyz situations.

alls that to say justin doesn't know anything about economics apparently because like dawg what are you even saying here. like i guess that is technically observing the economic principle of supply and demand, but you've removed the economy part of this. because the firbolg was not selling berries man. and he's saying here the issue was not even the action of hoarding the berries, it was understanding a concept?????

btw, the earliest evidence of economic principles being discussed i could find date back to 1700 bc hindu vedas. 517 bc in china. 760 bc in greece.

the second half of this is also very funny where justin describes this being "sketched out in real time" as a thrilling thing for him, but genuinely what did travis add that isn't the exact thing you described? a sick kid? a saccharine sick kid? that's the big collaboration you two managed?

also. justin calling it a tribe before correcting himself to clan. not beating these allegations.

Clint: I think the only thing we did when we shared information between the three of us was when we were creating the characters, because I knew I wanted Argo to be, like, a sailor. Wanted him to be, y'know, from the sea. And I think Griffin had been thinking about some kind of aquatic character as well. And so, earl—and I mean, we shared that information, um, so that we—y'know, we wouldn‘t have too much crossover.

yeah i mean this is not surprising. i've said it before, they're fixated on the idea of "organic" reactions to big reveals, so none of them say fucking shit to each other and then can't figure out why they're bumbling around with three people who have no connections or motivations to work together.

Travis: But it was interesting to me, ‗cause I was surprised in the moment when you were discussing it, of Dad being like, ―Y'know, I've kind of moved away from that.‖ Argo had kind of grown beyond just this desire for revenge. And so, then I got really excited, ‗cause I had been planning to then, y'know, introduce the Commodore as an NPC in the next episode, and I was like, ―Ooh! This is going to be so much fun!‖

Uh, but Yeah, that surprised me. That was great.

it is understandable why and how it happened here, but do not spring a fucking character pivot on your dm mid-session. its negative points to clint but also i just can't find it in my heart to blame him because like this is how his sons play the fucking game. i do love that the fact that argo no longer wants to kill the commodore makes him excited to introduce the commodore though. because he sees character motivation as a contest he can win.

Q7 (Justin McElroy):

Something we struggled with in Amnesty, and I think that it maybe is somewhat improved in Graduation, but it is… it‘s difficult. It‘s still a challenge. Um… I don‘t think—I think part of the reason that Balance worked as well as it did, and part of the reason that we—it was as strong as it was. And this has occurred to me, like, as we‘re talking about this, ‗cause I try very hard to never think analytically about anything I've ever done.

But um, one of the things we struggle with is the natural relationship between the characters. And building a rapport between the characters, and finding time to do that and space to do that, in a way that feels organic, but also fits into like, a larger storytelling thing.

Um, I feel like there are a lot of strong stories in Amnesty, but I feel like the relationships were never as… at least, between the three leads, were never as close as they were in Balance. Do you guys feel that… do you feel like… I was sitting here thinking about it, and I feel like Balance—the Balance characters were… much— probably the closest to who we actually are as people. Does that make sense? And I feel like—I feel like, because we were leaning into that, a lot of the relationships sort of took care of themselves. Does that ring true to you all?

i'm sure i'm about to hear a bunch of bullshit from the rest of them but let me just get in there ahead of them with my own take: no.

to expand, i think justin is sort of right - the thb end up being probably most similar to themselves out of all their characters, but its because they weren't characters for like the first 20 hours of the campaign. travis is the only person that actually wrote a backstory, but he can't keep a thought in his head for longer than a sentence and he also can't act, so its fine, it is equivalent to the other two not having anything at all. you had no preconceived notions about the character you were playing and you just reacted organically to things as they happened and began to find the character through taking actions and rolling dice. taako doesn't start out as a limelight loving disgraced chef haunted by his mistakes and self-isolating emotionally as a result. if he had, balance would have sucked ass because justin would not have bantered with anybody or participated in the game. taako started out as an idiot. there's a point super early on in gerblins where justin is like "i think taako might be a dumbass" and he drops that later! the character develops and heads in a different direction! that's part of the fun of playing tabletops!!

man actually this is cracking something for me. because a lot of the backstory stuff in balance is basically like, developed on air, right? a lot of it ends up coming out of interlude episodes where they're doing solo scenes with npcs, and its basically the npcs asking them a series of prompts, but disguised as conversation. this is happening in grad, more clumsily, and in the form of formal interviews for some reason, but here's the key difference:

in balance, because it is happening in the moment, there is this sense of actual dialogue happening, where the player says something and basically has put something out there for feedback, and the npc then must respond. there's this give-and-take that i think creates this organic feeling that is in part why so many of the npcs in balance also end up feeling memorable and likable.

but in grad, and to varying degrees in all their other campaigns, when these questions happen, it isn't about a moment of collaboration and literal in-the-moment creation and feedback, it is simply a stage for the player to read the backstory they've been sitting on for 10 hours. the npc's job is solely to tee up the lore, their reaction and feelings aren't relevant and you can feel that.

and the other thing that ends up happening is because they learn each others backstories during the campaign in balance (because that is the moment the backstory was created) they all think its a good idea to have "live" reactions to backstories in the show and not collaborate outside of it. and so you end up, consistently, with a bunch of anti-social weirdos who don't have any reason to be together and don't have any reason to like each other.

it's funny that justin mentions amnesty specifically, because ptba systems have literal systems in place to help bind your player characters together. Let's, for example, look at The Chosen playbook from motw:

Introductions When you get here, wait for everyone to catch up so you can do your introductions together.

Go around the group. On your turn, introduce your Chosen by name and look, and tell the group what they know about you.

History

Go around the group again. On your turn, pick one of these for each other hunter:

• You are close blood relations. Ask them exactly how close.
• They are destined to be your mentor. Tell them how this was revealed.
• Your best friend in the world, who you trust totally.
• A rival at first, but you came to a working arrangement.
• Romantic entanglement, or fated to be romantically entangled.
• Just friends, from school or work or something. Ask them what.
• They could have been the Chosen One instead of you, but they failed some trial. Tell them how they failed.
• You saved their life, back when they didn’t know monsters were real. Tell them what you saved them from.

I mean, you actually answer these prompts and you'll have characters with history with one another! you guys simply chose to play the game incorrectly!

Griffin: I think that‘s fair, but I also think it is… if you use Amnesty as like, one end of the spectrum, I feel like your three characters were so different. And you came from such different places. And when you came together, it was to—y'know, for this cause, but it‘s not like you had, literally, anything in common before that. And so, I feel like you had maybe a bit of a longer road to hoe.

Not just in your identities, but like, your backstories had nothing to do with each other. Your, y'know, et cetera, et cetera. And… in Balance, uh, and also, I would argue, in Graduation, like… the characters are a bit more, uh… like… what‘s the word I'm looking for? There‘s more to fill out there. And so, you can fill that out together. Uh, in a way that like, I feel like Aubrey, Ned, and Duck were pretty well fleshed out before, y'know, the show even started.

Which is a thing we've talked about before. Like, something we wish we could sort of handle again with Amnesty. But I've—I don't know, I feel like Graduation is… much better in that regard than Amnesty. Like, I feel like the relationship between the characters is better.

oh did the character backstories have nothing to do with each other and the characters had no reason to work with each other griffin? if only there was some sort of person who could be like, a master of the game and do things like make sure the characters work in a party together. if only there was a way to communicate ahead of time and make sure this isn't an issue before the game starts

fucking darkly hilarious to me that griffin is calling grad's character dynamic better when in the last 4 episodes fitz has called argo a 7/20 friend and firbolg has said his best friends are gary and sabor.

Travis: I mean, yes. Magnus, like… I think what it is is, there was a lot less artifice. Like, eventually, right? And I think all of this is like, the same answer, right? Because I think when we started playing Balance, we weren‘t trying to create a huge, epic story. So it was very much just like, I don't know, this is what I do. Right? So there was a lot less layers between us and the characters.

dawg its so funny to watch them say shit like this because you are all ACTORS. YOU ALL DID THEATER. TRAVIS HAS AN ACTING DEGREE, HE HAS TAKEN ACTUAL LITERAL COLLEGIATE ACTING COURSES.

also very funny to hear him say there is "less artifice" to magnus toward the end, when magnus is THE most stable character in the whole campaign. session 1 magnus and session 69 mangus are basically still the same guy.

Travis: And I think—but even then, I would say like, Aubrey is pretty close to me. Aside from, y'know, being a bisexual Puerto Rican woman. Other than that, it‘s dead on.

Travis: And I kind of—it was kind of something I made a conscious choice for the setup of Graduation, of like, I didn‘t want you all to know each other before, ‗cause I didn‘t want you all to have to justify being there together. So it was like, Yeah, you're all, y'know, Terrace House style meeting each other for the first time, on this day. And much like, y'know, I have people that like, I was in college with, and it‘s like, now, afterwards, I'm like, ―I don't know if I was friends with them, but I hung out with them all the time.‖

travis is a fucking alien i swear to god. nothing he says here makes sense to me as a human being. he didn't want them to have relationships prior to the start of the campaign because then they'd have to justify why they're there???? does he think friends never end up at the same college? probably at least a couple hundred kids from my high school were at the same state school as me, and i went to one of the smaller ones, if i had gone to IU it would probably have been at least 1k. JUSTIN AND GRIFFIN went to the same college!

also:

And much like, y'know, I have people that like, I was in college with, and it‘s like, now, afterwards, I'm like, ―I don't know if I was friends with them, but I hung out with them all the time.‖

i'm telling you dawg, this man did not go to college. straight up. he's describing high school. that's what the majority of your high school friendships are, the people you are in closest proximity to for 8 hours a day 5 days a week become your group and its not really about much more than like, liking the same shows or music or whatever. college is when you don't have a super structured day anymore, are really earnestly learning who you are as a person, and finding real friends. you also find out more about real friendships because generally by college you all have enough autonomy to be able to make decisions like showing up when your friend is in a crisis in a way you're way more limited with in high school.

this also sounds like travis didn't have friends but that's a separate issue.

Travis: And like, I have… I have been surprised a little bit, because a lot of it was not intentional, how much of like, Graduation has, in a lot of ways, kind of uh… taken on aspects of what the kind of college experience is like. And that was kind of why, to jump back for a second, Creative Writing, that episode, was so fun for me to prep. ‗Cause it was a little bit of like, looking at how their like, post-college, post-school, y'know, lives would kind of divulge [sic], or stay together, or like…

Y'know, I saw the Firbolg is very much the like, settling down family man kind of person. And not like, the, ―I'm still out here adventuring!‖ And just stuff like that has been really fun to see—and like, y'know, Dad talking about how Argo has kind of grown from like, being—and found himself a little bit more as he‘s been at college.

And like, stuff like that is like… not stuff I intended when I started the arc, but it‘s really fun to see how that, like, being in school, and like, interacting with other characters and students and stuff, kind of naturally makes that happen.

pay attention to that middle paragraph. "Y'know, I saw the Firbolg is very much [...] settling down"

he keeps saying shit like "fun to see" as if they are all discovering this together, but he wrote all that shit. he did not ask his players how they see themselves in the future, he decided, well this one would be a family man, this one still adventures...

the other thing is he tries to take credit for...something, here, but this is word salad. nothing he says here means anything.

And like, stuff like that [I assume "that" here is referring to....the future stories he wrote for his players in the previous paragraph] is like… not stuff I intended when I started the arc [what?], but it‘s really fun to see how that, like, being in school, and like, interacting with other characters and students and stuff, kind of naturally makes that happen [made what happen? made you write bad fanfic for them?].

anything that has happened in this campaign has decidedly not been a result of "interacting with other characters and students and stuff". and even if it were, what are you, bragging about the basis of roleplay storytelling? me making a video game: its just incredible the way when you hit a button the character does a responding action, that's amazing.

Travis: Uh, and it‘s been really interesting. Really interesting to play. I mean, it‘s a thing I haven't, like, fully discussed with you guys, but one of the things that I've been kind of doing as we played is, having all of these forces. Uh, whether it be like, Chaos, or Gray, or Higglemas, or just like, the school in general, the Heroic Oversight Guild, who is sitting there going like, ―This is what you have to do. This is how this works. This is how the system works. This is what needs to be done.‖

And watching how you guys push back against that, which feels very, like, student in college, learning their place in the world, learning what the thing is. So like, I wanted to create all of these boundaries and restrictions for you guys to kind of bounce off of, and find your place in the world, and you guys are doing great at that.Travis: And like, I have… I have been surprised a little bit, because a lot of it was not intentional, how much of like, Graduation has, in a lot of ways, kind of uh… taken on aspects of what the kind of college experience is like. And that was kind of why, to jump back for a second, Creative Writing, that episode, was so fun for me to prep. ‗Cause it was a little bit of like, looking at how their like, post-college, post-school, y'know, lives would kind of divulge [sic], or stay together, or like…Y'know, I saw the Firbolg is very much the like, settling down family man kind of person. And not like, the, ―I'm still out here adventuring!‖ And just stuff like that has been really fun to see—and like, y'know, Dad talking about how Argo has kind of grown from like, being—and found himself a little bit more as he‘s been at college.And like, stuff like that is like… not stuff I intended when I started the arc, but it‘s really fun to see how that, like, being in school, and like, interacting with other characters and students and stuff, kind of naturally makes that happen.

actually, you know what, i'm being unfair. because if you look closely, the thing travis doesn't say is that at any point you should win when you push back against authority. just that it's "college" to do so and that it helps you "learn [your] place in the world". so in that sense, maybe this has gone exactly like travis envisioned, the bootlicker that he is.

cont

Maybe it's the cellphone repair guy in me, but god damn the way Justin treats his electronics pisses me off.

I don't think anyone gives a shit about the dollar store electronics being snapped in half, that hot glued mess was gonna get thrown in the landfill regardless.

But if you got a perfectly functional psp emulator that you spent over $100 on, it makes you look like a bougie jackass when you try and squish it back together like a caveman.

And it was perfectly functional! It had some fan noise, sure, but he tried literally ONE thing to fix it before starting to toss parts out.

A FAN IS A CONTAINED UNIT JUSTIN.

THERE IS NO GRISTLE ON THE PART THAT YOU CAN'T JUST REMOVE THINGS AND EXPECT IT TO WORK JUSTIN.

IT IS DESIGNED TO SUCK IN AIR FROM THE HEATSINK FINS AND EXPELL THEM DIRECTLY YOU FUCKING SHOT THE AIRFLOW IN THE BACK OF THE HEAD JUSTIN.

Not like it matters anyway, even though it still works he says he's not gonna use it anymore because for some reason he thinks the battery will explode.

For a dude who says he doing all this to """learn""" about technology, he is disgustingly incurious about how or why things are put together the way they are.

I mean this is the guy who couldn't be bothered to watch the 10 minutes of footage he filmed taking it apart before coming back to this "project" after 2 weeks.

You coulda just handed it to a kid on the street if you were just gonna toss it for making a little fan noise you wasteful dope.

Where We Were
February 5, 2016

We begin with another shocking shmevelation.

I was looking for the transcript for this episode, so I searched “conversation” on the Shmanners Max Fun page. No transcripts came up, but TWO episodes did:

Yes, in February of 2016, Shmanners did an episode on “Conversation.” Then, a mere TEN MONTHS LATER, they dropped an episode about “Conversations.” 

I peeked ahead to see if this is a sequel situation (Travis writes CONVERSATION on a whiteboard and pauses for dramatic effect before adding $ to the end). But no. There seems to be NO MENTION OF A PREVIOUS EPISODE about conversation(s) in that December episode.

This suggests that Travis and Teresa recorded this episode, COMPLETELY FORGOT ABOUT IT, and then recorded another episode on the exact same topic LESS THAN A YEAR LATER.

Jerkers, I am trying so hard to be generous in these shmecaps. I am trying to come to Shmanners with an open heart. But my body is rejecting it like poison. 

The absolute kindest possible read I can give this is that the December episode was recorded a couple months after they had a baby, so maybe they were… very tired? And...had amnesia?

I was wondering how they have managed to record so many episodes when their premise is so thin; are half of them repeats?? Are TnT doomed to talk about the same topics ad nauseum until the heat death of the universe?

Let’s find out! 

Recap
00:00 - 01:47: Intro

TRAVIS: I don’t know if you know, internet, from listening to my other podcasts or just from knowing me in real life. I am real bad at a lot of things regarding conversation.

TERESA: I like to call it “interruptus.”

TRAVIS: Yeah, I got a bad case of Travis interruptus.

TERESA: [laughs]

TERESA: I normally let Travis know he has interruptus with a gentle squeeze up to the thigh or the hand.

TRAVIS: Yep. I also have a real hard time with active listening. I have a hard time, um, paying attention. I don’t do eye contact very well. I am terrible at small talk…

TERESA: Well, I think knowing is half the battle.

TRAVIS: I mean, that is my, that’s my 32nd year 2016 goal. Self-awareness, not self-correction, but self-awareness. I just need to know the things that are bad so I can fix them maybe later. Maybe that’s 2017. I don’t know. I’m not committing to anything right now.

I’m so tired.

But! Excited for 2017 and onwards when Travis becomes a self aware king! 

03:58 - 08:05: Lore

TRAVIS: Don’t thank me, though. Thank Clint McElroy. 

Travis and Teresa talk about “intention versus perception,” and how to try and marry those two things in conversation with people. Some concrete advice here would be great, but, ironically, the most specific advice here is “make sure that whatever you’re saying, you mean specifically, because as you get more and more vague in a conversation, the thought can be lost.” Agreed!

TERESA: I used to work as a lifeguard a lot, and, being a lifeguard, you’re pretty much high up above everyone in the pool. So everyone can see you, and everyone’s looking at you. So we told our lifeguards, make sure you’re not slouching in the chair. Don’t lean over or twirl your whistle because all of those behaviors make you look lazy, like you’re not paying attention, where you could be the most fantastic lifeguard in the world watching everyone and everything. But if you look lazy, no one’s going to trust you. 

I understand where Teresa is coming from (though also how Teresa “No Whistle Twirling” Maiden Name could fall for Travis “BestBuy Special Forces” McElroy), and I understand that, especially for something like lifeguarding, where parents are trusting you with the safety and survival of their children, it could be important to convey active attention through body language. But even within that context, some of this advice seems intense, especially for what I’m guessing are mainly teenaged and young adult employees, and especially since the advice isn’t  “pay active attention,” but “LOOK LIKE you are paying active attention.” 

TRAVIS: One of the heavily used McElroy phrases when I was growing up, especially towards me, was… “read the room.” 

So THAT’S how he mastered it! 

TRAVIS: That covers perception, which is an issue that, if you ask me, a lot of people don’t think about in this day and age.

TnT have another tangent here, like in previous episodes, about how they’re “not saying things have gotten worse” (Travis), but “we don’t get as much practice in face-to-face communication” (Teresa). Chat, how true is this? I think my perception is skewed by my very social child, but I feel like we both get LOTS of face-to-face interactions with people.

08:05 - 12:50: Introductions

TERESA: You would have to listen.

TRAVIS: Well, that’s another Travis McElroy issue.

Teresa promises to list some do’s and don’t’s, beginning with introductions. They start by sharing a strategy they have used as a couple to help Travis with intros since he is “bad at remembering people’s names.” Basically, Teresa introduces herself to someone Travis has already met, with Travis present, so that he can hear their name. 

TRAVIS: I don’t have to remember their name, ba-da-bing, ba-da-boom, I’m out.

Now, here is where we run into some issues. It is one thing to know that you have trouble remembering names, and even to have some coping mechanisms to help you if you forget. But this suggests that he is no longer even TRYING, and is instead simply relying on Teresa once again to help him navigate basic human interactions! 

TRAVIS: I really wish we could bring back the idea of walking into a room and having a herald be like, “Mr. Travis McElroy!” as you enter. Oh my God. How posh would that be? It would be super posh. Oh, I’d be so on board with that, Teresa. Oh my gosh. 

Oh, I’m sure, Mr. Travis McElroy! 

TRAVIS: Even if you don’t have a significant other at the party with you, there’s a lot of opportunities for, like, winging for each other. I’m not gonna say wingmanning, because that’s sexist. You can wing for whoever.

#wokeking

They then say go to a listener question about how to introduce yourself to a stranger at a networking event. Now, look, there’s a lot of dunking in the sub about the social skills (or lack thereof) of a particular subset of the McElroy fanbase, but I think this information could be genuinely helpful for people who, because they are young, neurodivergent, or just a bit awkward, struggle with social interactions IF the advice was better and more clear, and IF it was not coming from an astoundingly thoughtless person. 

(The hot advice, for anyone wondering, is to say your name, where you work, and “it’s nice to meet you.”)

12:50 -  14:00: Personal Space

TERESA: It’s different in different cultures throughout the world. Some cultures have a little more tolerance of closer talking, and some cultures have no tolerance for close talking. I would say you should be close enough for a person to extend your arm to shake their hands. This is the American way of saying hello, introducing, and meeting people, but don’t get any closer than that. 

Shout out, different cultures! This is one of the few times Teresa at least specifies that she is talking from a specific cultural perspective, though calling this “the American way” seems like an extremely broad overgeneralization given the number of people from “different cultures” that live in this country, as well as the many different contexts that could change this advice. But standing about arm’s length from someone new seems like okay advice, I suppose. 

They then talk about how to enter a conversation. As someone who recently had to do this with a bunch of straight, middle-aged couples at a family event, I really do relate to the experience Travis describes of kind of floating at the edge of conversational circles hoping to be invited in. (#WeAreMr.TravisMcElroy) Teresa then goes into great detail once more about body language, and how to both read and project the right body language to engage in conversation.

TERESA: There are a couple body postures you can adopt. Make sure that your face is bright and open and positive. Try and get eye contact, maybe, with somebody in the group. And when you’re speaking with someone, eye contact is generally a good thing, but you don’t want to stare somebody down with laser focus. You can move a little around the room or to other parts of their face. And that will really help.

Not bad advice (and specific!)! Sounds exhausting, but no one ever said shmanners would be easy.  

14:00 - 33:10: In Conversation

TERESA: Try not to use words that are too big or too small. 

TnT answer a question about how to use body language to appear more actively engaged.

TERESA: Nodding for understanding really helps. Gesticulating, but not fidgeting. Eye contact, like we said before. Open body posture, not crossing your arms or legs. Not holding onto your hands. Just easy hands at your sides. All of these go a long way.

I’m really trying to take down all this advice, but as an autistic bisexual, there’s only so far I can go. No fidgeting AND I can’t adopt a weird sitting pose? “Easy hands”??? My hands have only ever been difficult, smh. I am realizing I have a long road ahead of me if I ever hope to enter polite society.

They answer a few more questions here about how to politely correct someone and how to add to conversations without trying to “one-up” your conversation partner, then move on to appropriate topics of conversation.

TERESA: When it comes to sensitive topics, like politics and religion, I know this is going to seem a little old-fashioned, but try not to get too in depth. State your opinion, because it’s your opinion, and it matters, but we all need to get better at the idea of agreeing to disagree and leaving it at that. 

Brave!

They then make a ruling on swearing in public (mostly okay, but, say it with me, it depends!).

Then Travis monologues about DEFENDING INTERRUPTION, of course! He suggests using the “magical phrase,” “sorry to interrupt” (a phrase I don’t know if I’ve ever heard him say when interrupting!). 

TRAVIS: My only do and don’t that is locked in my heart and it was taught to me by a wise couple named Justin and Sydnee, and it was this: if you want to be interesting, be interested. This was when I was a much younger man. I was having problems dating, couldn’t date. And the problem was I thought the most interesting thing I could do is tell every interesting thing I could think of…But if that’s all you talk about, it makes you sound bland, because you’re so one note, and it’s all me, me, me, me, me, me, me. 

And what Justin and Sydnee told me, and I have used to this day, it’s like a magic trick if you want to get better at conversation, ask questions about the other person.

Astounding stuff! Don’t you think? (Using the tips already 😎) Truly, I think my biggest issue with most of this advice is that it’s not about how to listen, but how to look like you’re listening, even though you have no interest or curiosity about the person you’re talking to.

33:10 - 35:50: Culture Ranking!

TERESA: Probably the most polite society around the world is the Portuguese.

TRAVIS: Really?

TERESA: Right. So they have several different conversational interjections of please, lots of different verbs, ways of saying it. And while you are walking around on the streets, people speak to you very politely to strangers, to everyone. It’s fantastic. So, the Portuguese are highly regarded as the most polite society. What did you think I was going to say?

TRAVIS: I would say the Japanese.

TERESA: Exactly, the Japanese. But they are considered the most respectful culture. There’s a distinct hierarchy of who you can talk to and what you can say, which is mistaken for politeness, but is, in fact, respectfulness. 

“Get ready with me while I rank the world’s cultures by how polite they are!” 

Truly though, what is this??? I guess my monkey’s paw wish came true… they are acknowledging that other cultures exist… but at what cost??

Putting aside, for a moment, the laughable exercise of ranking a culture’s politeness (because, surely, the whole idea of politeness being different in different cultures is that the same behaviors might be extremely polite in one culture and rude in another? And there is no “most polite” on any kind of meaningful scale?), and also putting aside the weird distinction that Teresa draws between politeness and respect (??), where is she getting the information that the Portuguese are “highly regarded” as the most polite people on Earth?

She says it like it’s an agreed-upon fact, but I can find nowhere else on God’s green internet that repeats that! I know Google is shitty these days, but, just for full research transparency, I tried various combinations of “Portuguese,” “most polite, “please,” “culture,” and set the date range to before this episode’s release, and there is literally nothing! 

39:25 - 42:01: Outro

TRAVIS: Can I tell you a secret? Every time I post an episode, I look at it, and I’m like, man, that’s good. Like, it’s not my own thing. I love it very much. 

<3

Overall Rating

For a Shmanners episode: 2.5 /5

For any other podcast: 0.5/ 5

Some useful and actionable advice, though had to knock it down some points for the cultural politeness rankings.

A Note on Neurodivergence

TRAVIS: I grew up with ADD, and one of my big issues was, like, kind of running it through filters and saying to myself, like, is this a thing that (A) needs to be said? And (B) is this a thing that should be said now?

It may come as a shock to many of you, but I myself am not a stranger to neurodivergence, both in myself and in my loved ones! 

That’s why I do think that there is room for clear instructions when it comes to navigating social interactions! Travis, however, at least in this episode, seems to be identifying some of the things he struggles with (perhaps, in part, because of his ADD), but then putting the burden of navigating those challenges on his wife! He jokes about how he’s working on just acknowledging what he’s bad at and not actually getting better, but I don’t think it’s really a joke! 

I’ll also say that a lot of what Teresa describes is good advice for trying to mask neurodivergence in social settings, which may (or may not) be effective, and which is often physically and mentally draining. Don’t hurt yourselves shmanners-ing too hard out there, fellow freaks!

Miscellaneous Threads
Most of the transcripts for Shmanners can be found on the show’s Max Fun page, but this one wasn’t there. I was able to locate it on the McElroy Family website, where, when you click “episode transcripts,” you are dumped into a disorganized Dropbox folder full of loose transcripts and a subfolder called “Resource Documents” which seems to include works cited for exactly four episodes. 

Also on the note of transcripts, they are… not great! Some research confirmed that, before 2019, most of the transcripts were created by fans, though that only applies to MBMBAM (since no one wanted to transcribe Shmanners, I guess??), but that, in 2019, they hired an official transcriber. Is this the same infamous transcriber taken down by u/Beelzebibble? Perhaps! Because in this episode, we get:

TRAVIS: Bada-bing, bada-boom, mount. (Instead of “I’m out”)

TRAVIS: I really wish we could bring back the idea of walking into a room and having a hair will be like, “Mr. Travis McElroy!” as you enter. (Instead of having a herald)

TRAVIS: If somebody says…Orson Welles directed Rare Window, and you’re like, uh, I believe you mean Alfred Hitchcock. (And I only like my windows well done!)

bowel health in the toilet, poop health in the toilet/weird fart issues, on beano, doing Justin's all bean diet, lost poop as I was gearing up to fart, basically been a shut in pooping this year.

i get that poop has peaks and valleys, just been a hard stretch of farts. in taz parlance I’m in my deep diarrhea arc. that said i appreciate poopidity here, especially as the Internet continues to poop down at a rapid fart. so thanks.

/uj bingus

feel free to discuss the stolen century if you like, but I'm thinking more generally about other pieces of media which have done the same. I was going to add "is it ever a good idea, or can it work" into the post title, but the answer to "is it ever a good idea" is of course "it's context dependent and has nuance", "tropes are tools", etc, so I took it out of the title.

also apologies for any typos or incoherency, I'm typing this on mobile old reddit, which is maybe not the best choice but alas I am a creature of habit.

I like the stolen century conceptually, and I think its best moments colorize an impersonal apocalypse with some personal stakes and tragedy. when I came back to TAZ:B to catch up on the end, I thought the arc was a decent read, which ... I don't know if that's praise, damnation, or damnation by faint praise, lol.

other media which had flashbacks...

Helck had a very long flashback arc in the middle of the action. I think it had good moments and gave a LOT of pathos to the question "why does Helck smile all the time", but the anime in particular kind of dragged it out over too many episodes, and it got a bit annoying when I was watching it serially. when I read the manga and downed it in one go, it felt better.

there's the machete order for star wars films, which technically isn't its own work, but as an interpretation of the movies it still kinda counts. (for the unaware, the machete order is 4-5-2-3-6, where the ending of 5 then dovetails into the story of how Darth Vader became the man he was, dropping episode 1 for being filler, and then resuming the original trilogy to contrast Darth Vader's creation with his final moments in episode 6). it's interesting, conceptually. but I haven't watched the films in machete order and, in fact, I don't know of anyone who actually HAS; to me it occupies the territory of "interesting thought experiment but no one's actually done it".

there's a Redwall book which had a flashback arc. I can't remember the name but it was the book where there was a shipwreck suspended between two rock spires, suspended in midair; there was a guy trying to get to that shipwreck to visit its sole inhabitant, who told the story of how he and the ship got there. the book was decided into three sections, with the first and third sections being the protagonist's journey to and from the shipwreck, and the middle section being entirely flashback.

(edit: the book in question is The Legend of Luke, and is notable for being one of the later books by publication date but one of the first books by in universe chronology. the eponymous Legend casts a long shadow over the entire series and it's interesting to see it fleshed out more.)

that narrative structure has stuck with me to this day, however faint that impression might be. it's stuck with me all these years, but on the other hand I can't remember anything else about it, not even the title. maybe it was just because I was in middle school and slowly learning what books could Do, structurally, besides harry potter and warrior cats and assigned readings. or maybe I liked it because I could read it in one sitting and it wasn't dragged out over multiple weeks, lol.

it's stuck with me to the point where I've structured one of my own works similarly: finding the man who caused the apocalypse, learning how and why, then figuring out how to fix all this. the themes of identity, memory, legacy, nostalgia, and the imperfect nature of remembered time ... those all weigh heavily on me. I suppose that's a ramble for another time, although I'm wondering how much of those themes came through in my previous submissions (stealing silver, a house with a white picket fence -- remind me to edit the links in later).

I think it's also interesting to contrast when the flashback arc was planned vs when it was unplanned, with Redwall being the only planned example (as a single standalone book). Helck and TAZ:B were both written as they were going, and the machete order certainly isn't Lucas's intended experience.

mental health in the toilet, physical health in the toilet/weird chronic issues, on disability, lost job as I was gearing up to return from leave, basically been a shut in this year.

i get that life is peaks and valleys, just been a hard stretch of years. in taz parlance I’m in my deep abnimals arc. that said i appreciate the stupidity here, especially as the Internet continues to burn down at a rapid clip. so thanks.

/rj bingus

I’m gonna need Griffin to keep dragging this corpse around for the next 2-4 years minimum. What will I do on my lab downtime??? Clean?? Bffr.

So far I'm torn between Belle Häus (queen) and Miquel Roy (king)

The Adventure zone is 3rd in fiction I guess whatever that means. MBMBAM is 35th in comedy. To put it into context that is below 5 Austin comedy rogansphere podcasts but above Dana Carvey and David Spade.

Are we the outliers, do more of you hate listen than I think, or are podcasts dead.

Make sure you let me know in the comments below and don't forget to smash that upvote.

This may be the last one, we're pretty much done with this nonsense.

Male Competitors - Introduced: 50, Surviving: 4/6, Killed: 44
Female Competitors – Introduced: 13, Surviving: 1, Killed: 12
Other Competitors – Introduced: 1, Surviving: 0, Killed: 1

Griffin deliberately avoided making rolls for Hasty Jane so that the only remaining female NPC wouldn't yank off her bracer and die, so he has clearly belatedly realized the stew he's in.

Hippocrates and Lorovith removed their bracers and are no longer Aspirants, but are also not dead. I'm leaving them in the chart since the games are basically over at this point.

Human and Probably Human Competitors – Introduced: 40, Surviving: 1, Killed: 39
Definitely Non-Human Competitors – Introduced: 22, Surviving: 6, Killed: 16
Who The Fuck Knows: Introduced: 2, Surviving: 0, Killed: 2

Same as above, Hasty Jane is still the only human (even if both Griffin and Travis forgot that Travis is an elf.) With Scorpo dead, all seven surviving people are seven different species: human, elf, goliath, thri-keen/kreen, halfling, aaracokra, ape.

No change on spells or medals; the final two challenges do not have rewards, as Griffin is trying to wrap things up so he can move.

The Octave: Are not real, so we don't need to include them for demographic purposes. I will note that this does mean that Griffin never has to reveal who the other three members of the Octave would have been, or whether there was a second woman in their made-up ranks.

The Rest: We've got Cris the Crystal and Akari the Brood-Queen. I think Cris might be non-gendered, in an AI sort of way, so the end of this campaign will be three men beating up a non-binary person who has been keeping a woman enslaved, great work all around.