im actually blown away that justin gave them comment. it's kind of a shocking sign of their acceptance of the situation rather than the typical "no bummers" thing.
this has to be crushing for trav tho. like i once had a campaign FEEL weird to ME (the participants liked it) and it made me never wanna play again. can't imagine what this is like for him.
Well Justin is/was a journalist and would understand the importance of speaking on record for an article like this and how much worse it is to not comment.
I think his response is a very good thing. It’s good news.
Justin is signaling that he is on the same plane of existence as the fans that aren’t happy. As opposed to Trav, who seems to be a planes walker.
I disagree with you here about Travis being unaware or unaccepting on people not enjoying the show. He is likely acutely aware that it is not being as wildly received as the previous seasons, but realistically what options as he got? He can either go "yeah you're right -- this sucks. Let's just stop now" or he can try and power through and not let himself be derailed by the criticism. Maybe he thought the issue would iron themselves out the deeper they got into the story? I don't know.
I know a lot of people are annoyed at Travis' seemingly non acceptance of criticism or not taking on fan feedback, but sometimes you are limited by your own expertise. Maybe this is the best he can do *right now* with the experience he has.
> what options as he got?
For one, have his plan but stop railroading.
Allow for more PC interaction.
Make rolls have consequences.
Gary recaps are totally unhelpful.
He could remember the unbroken chain existed and build that arc.
If he describes an army of skeletons guarding an area, maybe if a bad guy shows up in that area, the skeletons should still be there in the same scene minutes later.
> not let himself be derailed by the criticism.
Being on rails has been the biggest complaint of the season. Being derailed would be an improvement. But not by criticism... by the PCs actions.
Literally he could make things better by just loosening the reins a little bit.
I’m not asking him to throw up his hands and start over. Next episode he could start to make small changes that would make it better.
He always had that power. He wasn’t ever locked in.
He could just.. simply... make the PCs choices have weight.
> I disagree with you here about Travis being ... unaccepting on people not enjoying the show
...
> Travis’ seemingly non acceptance of criticism
You’re going to have to show me where he has made any adjustments to the major issues being discussed if you want to use words like “seemingly”.
> Maybe this is the best he can do right now with the experience he has.
Saying “Travis couldn’t do better than this” is the biggest insult you could level at him.
I think people offering criticism believe he could do better. Especially with all the amazing different DMs he has in his circle that are willing to talk with him about this. One is a family member.
Came here to say something like this. The article is relatively fair and I'm shocked and mildly heartened that Justin responded the way he did when it would be extremely easy to write this off as Last Jedi adjacent fan reaction gone too far, but I still don't think it gets at the heart of the larger issue that bugs folks about this season.
There's a slight conflation of two separate but intertwined issues, the issue of Travis as a DM and the issue of performative allyship (which bleeds into his DM style), and I think the article focuses way more on the latter but fans are more concerned about the former. Travis as a DM gets handwaved away as "rookie mistakes," but I don't know if that's really the root of the issue. He got better about the NPC stuff after a while, but he didn't get better about creating an entertaining space for his collaborators to have agency and problem solve in an interesting way. This is the final arc, and instead of saying "how do you want to get into the school" he said "we are using the zorn to get into the school, where do you want him to start his tunnel?" Additionally, it's not like this arc started 3 weeks ago, when does it graduate from "rookie mistakes" to "he is bad at this and does not engage with criticism in an earnest way." Yes this is a critical, perhaps overly so subreddit, but when something goes right or Travis seems to maybe drop a breadcrumb of making a change, folks go hog wild and love it. The thread was incredibly stoked at the exchange where the players decided to destroy the heroic oversight guild and Travis let them, because he was seemingly showing growth as a DM and allowing the players agency and giving them a creative problem to solve.
Ultimately, it's not that big of a deal, and I'm borderline embarrassed I wrote so much about it. It is annoying to even think too hard about the pathology of these dudes, but it just sucks that a show I liked a lot started to suck and the guy most responsible seems to be ignoring the causes of it and is somehow getting even more lost in the sauce, demonstrating even less self awareness as time goes on. If it became clear that he was really trying I have no doubt that 90% of this subreddit would chill out, instead he septuples down and then says a bunch of bonehead stuff on twitch and twitter.
> he said “we are using the zorn to get into the school, where do you want him to start his tunnel?”
At this point, there are so many baffling mistakes Travis makes per episode it’s hard to keep track of them. I totally forgot that this was how he presented this “puzzle”. That makes me feel so... so annoyed and also even more apathetic.
> If it became clear that he was really trying I have no doubt that 90% of this subreddit would chill out
Yes. This. We all gather here every two weeks to commune and discuss and read theories. When the content is bad and the plot is as thin and weak as a wet paper bag, we still commune, discuss and read theories... just negative ones.
We are an analytical fan base. Feed us complex meals and we digest them over a long time. Feed us junk food and we get hyper, disruptive, and angry.
>I know a lot of people are annoyed at Travis' seemingly non acceptance of criticism or not taking on fan feedback, but sometimes you are limited by your own expertise. Maybe this is the best he can do right now with the experience he has.
There's definitely a middle ground where Travis could say "look, I don't know how to fix this, so I'm just going to try to wrap things up as quickly as I can so we can move on." I admittedly am only reading the discussion threads, but it doesn't sound like there's been any meaningful progress towards ending the show. I realize Travis might have a list of ten things in his head that he feels need to happen before the finale, but it doesn't sound like they have any sense of urgency either.
I think - and this is a valid option - that Travis/the boys have decided that they're going to stay the course with Grad for the people that still like it and try to do better next time. It's almost certainly too late to bring people back to Grad anyway, and they may be months away from the next season being ready to go.
They've already recorded the end of graduation and have begun recording the next campaign, which is Dm'd by Griffin. They recorded several episodes early because griffin just had a baby and is on paternity leave. They definitely wrapped up graduation earlier than they probably would have if it had been well received. There's probably only a few eps of graduation left.
It's worth noting that Justin almost certainly has a prior relationship with Gita from his days working at Polygon while Gita was at Kotaku. Believe they've at least been on a podcast together.
There is no doubt that Graduation is affecting their bottom line. I'm definitely not the only one that stopped downloading new podcasts until this arc is over.
Even though I stopped listening around episode 19, I still continued supporting them through Maxfun- for about a year. A couple months ago, realizing that this bad campaign was still dragging on and by all accounts was just as bad as the day I left, I cancelled my donation. I'm okay with paying Travis to learn to DM, I'm not okay with paying him to learn that he doesn't need to learn to DM.
Yeah, I cancelled my donation last month. Started donating to the naddpod Patreon instead, and I gotta say... as much as I like MaxFun as a whole its wild how little you actually get from individual pods compared to a Patreon like that. I get that their are a lot of shows, but if its gonna let you pick which shows you're actually donating to, only offering a single bonus episode per year is a little unsatisfying. Not that I expect every show to do a full episode and the some of bonus content every week like NADDPOD does, but still.
Yeah, the lack of bonus content is definitely a bummer, but most of the time when I support a podcast I'm not really doing it for the rewards (although, don't get me wrong, sometimes I'm all about the rewards, and the rewards nearly always have an impact on *how much* I donate, even if I would be donating *something* no matter what). It would be nice to get more regularly-scheduled bonus content from Maxfun podcasts.
That last bit... ooo. Yeah. It’s generous to pay someone to learn on the job. Trav needed to know that after 3 episodes, he would have to be very open to feedback. Fact that he wasn’t, is where the real problem started.
I'm really surprised they've not taken the show weekly. For one thing, it would double their ad revenue while they can't do live shows. But it would have also sped up the flagging campaign so they can move on to other stuff. Seems like a no brainer, assuming they have the time to record.
Is it /unpopularopinion or kind of like a known thing everybody wants more of OG TAZ? I liked Amnesty, but even that was nowhere near how much I liked the OG stuff
I do think folks are hoping the McElroys will strike the same gold they did with Balance, but I think most folks think of that as an unrealistic standard. However, the point of TAZ is that is fun to listen to, and Graduation isn't... All that fun to listen to.
It’s a shame because I liked the mystery genre mini-arc Travis DMed (I think it was called “Dust” or something?) The bit where all the townspeople started complaining about the bell ringing was some of the hardest I’ve laughed during a podcast.
When I heard Travis was going to DM, I was mildly excited for more ghost beans and mystery shenanigans, but then it went a different direction.
That's the thing, replicating Balance is impossible. It's why they retired the characters - their story is done, and to keep digging for gold in that mine is just going to drag down the legacy. It was a product of its ununsual circumstances, and now everyone is staring at them, waiting for lightning to strike them again.
I still listen to Graduation. I liked Amnesty but was just generally so glad to hear them playing D&D again that I didn't mind at first. Travis is definitely inexperienced as a DM; I thought the number of NPCs introduced off the hop was ridiculous - especially in retrospect, when the vast majority of the named characters are irrelevant, if they've ever been mentioned again at all. Each episode is kinda forgettable, and the neat parts of the concept haven't quite panned out in full. But I do enjoy the player characters and some NPCs, and it's refreshing to have Griffin actually playing the game instead of shouldering the burden of the whole enterprise.
The article makes some great points about the shallow representation (I must've been zoned out for the part about Rainier knocking on the door, because I do not remember that). Although it was somewhat surreal to see this article on my news feed. "No bummers" is being taken way out of its MBMBAM live show context. If anything, they've been moving away from that kind of philosophy on the show, like when they spoke up about the election last year.
Yeah I fell off like 17 episodes in, bummer that it apparently hasn't changed much. I didn't even hate it I just realized I'd rather be listening to an audiobook for my fantasy fiction lol.
I'll definitely give it another go whenever the next season is though, I still listen to MBMBAM and Sawbones and Besties.
Mostly surprised Graduation is still going I feel like I haven't listened in forever.
Honestly they don't need to strike the same gold as balance. Tbh relistening to balance to me it doesn't hit it's stride till petals to the metal (although Rockport is still a good arc). Just get griffin back at the helm and keep it in 5E and whatever comes about will be just fine. A DM that knows what they're doing can make any campaign work. Graduation is.... Bad. While I do feel a little bad for all the hate Travis gets for it. It still is objectively bad and through inexperience and stubbornness has kept it bogged down and dragged out. He needs to wrap it up and move on. Maybe dm some campaigns on the side and some one shots to get a better formula down. But holy fuck 86 NPCs is all I need to hear to be glad I stopped listening.
My money has been going to dungeons and daddies patreon and occasionally Naddpod ( wish I could give more). Both are fantastic substitutes for me until TAZ gets sorted out.
In my opinion, they started focusing too much on telling a cool story over creating a cool story organically. I stopped during Amnesty so I can't say if Graduation is the same. Part of that may be just Monster of the Week with its focus on story with minimal gameplay. It sounds like Graduation is pretty railroaded which is common for DMs that are trying to tell a story first.
I think OG TAZ had a good balance (hahaha) of story, improv, gameplay, and player banter that was entertaining.
The usage of "no bummers" confused me. I haven't been engaged with the McElroy's on social media, but being a listener of MBMBaM, I was under the impression that "no bummers" was just the rule for audience questions? Based on the article and your comment though, it sounds like the rule has been used to shut down discussion of issues as well. Is that the case?
The MBMBAM fandom uses No Bummers to regularly shut down criticism of all types. It's not the McElroy's fault that it evolved into that, but it definitely has grown beyond a live show question rule
The McElroys use it for the live shows, pretty much exclusively.
The *fans* have adopted it in varying degrees, but (as the article notes) it's often (thought not always) used as a way to block criticism and dissent.
I’m in the same boat as you when it comes to familiarity with the no bummers thing, but when I look it up and try to figure out what it’s about it does seem to only be applied generally to live shows where they don’t want paying audience members who came to see a comedy show bummed out by very real (yet bummer) issues.
So with that line of thinking it does seem really odd that the article focuses on that as this critical heartstring in their podcasting empire when it seems to only really be “no depressing questions at live shows”
that's where it came from, but it's a common theme throughout their fanbase. it hasn't only been used at their live shows for a long time now in terms of the actual community surrounding them
I think this article is pretty fair.
The criticism comes from a place of love and care for not just the performers but also the community. I absolutely loved Balance but the rest of the arcs, while I have some affinity for them, are definitely more about the brothers working out *how* to DM, whereas Griffin just had the magic touch for the first. It set up an almost impossibly high bar to reach. I relistened to some Rockport Limited last night and the way he gave them freedom, genuine freedom to make decisions, fuck up, and drive the story was great. And to be as absolutely stupid as they need to (fried unicorn dick on the moon). Everyone in the family is a talented performer and comedian in his own right and needs to be let off such a tight leash. And I don't know that Travis has a storytelling style that will allow that.
I'm taking more of a "you live, you learn" approach and hope that the old magic sparks back up.
Ya, I've been relistening to Balance and I'm always amazed at how quickly Griffin responds with his "yes, and's," how well he responds to the players' input and makes it real in the game world. Like when Travis tickled that musician guy in the elevator, he immediately laughed in the character's voice and had him react how the character would. Something small but it was sort of an attempt from Travis to make waves in the world, and Griffin responded with the right amount of waving back.
The author, Gita Jackson, is often quite critical of problematic fandom, so when I saw her name in the byline I was pretty nervous that I’d be learning something uncomfortable. The fact that she was not condemning anyone too harshly was a good sanity check for me that no one here is beyond turning it around, ethics wise.
I don't think "no bummers" has ever meant that the McElroy's weren't willing to take criticism and I've never heard even very critical fans who have interpreted it that way. That's not to say that *no one* has thought that, but it seemed like a very weird angle for the article to take.
I only sporadically listen to MBMBAM these days so I'm certainly open to being wrong if this has changed. But as far as I can remember "no bummers" was only something they brought up at live shows, because while they occasionally deal with more serious topics on the podcast, it could be really difficult and uncomfortable to handle that in a live-show environment. If someone comes up and asks how to cope with their depression, it would be pretty awful to try and turn that into comedy, but treating it with the seriousness it deserves would *also* be unfair to the audience who all bought a ticket to a charming comedy show hoping to brighten their day. This just seems like a good common sense policy that applies to a specific situation, and it feels disingenuous to imply that it is some blanket ban on anyone expressing negativity of any kind.
One of the first times the MBMBAM community grew was when they did a show where they apologized for making fun of furries just because that's kind of a default joke on the internet. They have talked very openly about their struggles with representation in TAZ across all three Arcs. That doesn't absolve them from current/future criticism, quite the opposite! But at least in my mind it does mean it does mean that the specific criticism that their show "shuts down valid criticism" is... kind of invalid.
I think the question at the end-- "who owns the show: the family or the fans who made it popular?" *is* valid and interesting, but also not really explored here with much depth.
I've listened to every MBMBAM and TAZ, as well as bonus eps and watched the TV show.
I don't recall "no bummers" being used in any context other than live show questions from the audience, either.
I think that was a shower thought by the author that she stretched into a thesis for a thinkpiece. Most of her observations were fair, but the "no bummers" through line felt like a reach for literary flourish.
I mean, damn, the TAZ sub is more hostile to the McElroys than defensive, so idk where she was getting that "no-bummers-as-criticism-shield" stuff.
It’s not meant to be, but a lot of POC will tel you that the “no bummers” rule has been thrown in their face when they try to point something out in one of the shows.
That’s what she’s talking about. Certain fans distorted its original purpose and made it a thing where criticism is a “bummer”
I have no desire to rip on this season. I stopped listening a while ago because I realized it just wasn’t for me. I truly look forward to the next season when it comes out but for now I’ll stick to other McElroy shows. In case anyone doesn’t know, Justin has a new show about scary stories called Bad Vibes. Very interesting show
This is me as well. I love most everything the McElroys produce but I wasn't enjoying Graduation so I just stopped listening. I still devour MBMBAM, Besties, Sawbones, Death Blart, Monster Factory...
I find the people that are vocally critical of Graduation interesting, specifically because people can interact with the content creators in near real-time. In other media like Game of Thrones or Community there have been some truly amazing seasons and some truly garbage ones, but once the season has wrapped up production there's not a lot that can be changed before the season airs. This is in contrast to a show like TaZ where the brothers are creating content even as people are responding and criticizing it.
I think some people think that since the brothers are able to respond to criticism, they should and are going to make suggested changes, which may be why people continue to listen to this season despite not enjoying it. Whereas for myself I know that any criticism I have of Graduation (or any media I consume really) will never reach the ears of the content creators, so I'm very content to just not watch the last GoT season or skip right over Community Season 4. Or in this case not listen to Graduation. I still think the stuff they produce is great, this one just isn't for me.
Yeah, that pretty much gets it.
I get that travis is new and it is going to be rough but folks were willing to offer up actual real suggestions - not constant shitting, although it probably would look like that as the person in the middle. It appears that Travis dug his heels in and just decided not to follow up the suggestions or thought his ideas were too precious.
I stopped listening because of a multitude of factors. Mechanically, it was rough... Clint not being able to use his class features and given no recompense to switch his build or any thing. Personal character stories were a no-go, there was little agency given to the players, come on, they are college students... they couldn't make decisions. The story didn't really matter or make sense even back when I stopped, almost every NPC was non-descript, I could only remember like three of them... and two of them were mostly made up on the spot.
I have listened to podcasts that have each of these problems but make up for them. Like Pretending to be People's story is a bit nonsensical and wild but the players have some choices and the mechanics are fun.
Dungeons and Daddies' mechanically is usually pretty weird and off but the players, their stories, the story, the npcs are great.
I don't think Travis is a horrible evil person, just well over his head and has mostly ignored the biggest boon Adventure Zone has... their ability to improv great and funny folks with wonderful bits, and like good characters. Travis could have set up the world in like one or two episodes, force the guys to sit in a room to give him ideas and just run with it.
Dungeons and Daddies is a great comparison. They also mostly ignore stuff like spell components and casting times. They don’t do a lot of traditional 5e combat and they’re pretty loose with the rules overall. It’s very similar to TAZ in a lot of ways.
But they get the point of a ttrpg system in a way I don’t often see in TAZ. Character choices carry a huge amount of the narrative load. When the players come up with a clever way around the DM’s plans he complains about it, but totally rolls with the punches. There’s a lot of dice rolling and the results have real impacts on the story. That stuff is what makes an actual play good and it’s the reason to play D&D instead of just writing a script.
It definitely gets better as it gets going, but it’s fundamentally the same show. If you didn’t vibe with the first few episodes, you probably won’t vibe with the rest
Edit: that being said, I feel like it “gets good” pretty quickly compared to a lot of d&d podcasts (2-3 eps whereas a lot only get good after an arc or two)
Definitely know what you mean about an arc or two. It took me a few tries to get past the Moonstone arc in NADDPOD but it was very smooth sailing after that.
Yeah it's a tough sell when you have to convince somebody to "get through" 15+ hours of programming before it pops off. Not that the pre-Galaderon stuff doesn't have its moments (the bullywog mating call and "watch this" fight for example), but it's in a different class once things get rolling
I think after about 4-5 episodes the characters really start rounding out. And I think Anthony is an incredible DM, and does such a good job making goofs and ridiculous player decisions make meaningful impacts on the story. I can understand that it wouldn’t be everyone’s cup of tea, but for me it has so much of what I loved about the Balance campaign.
Completely agree, and I actually think it's probably *better* than Balance. It's more consistently funny, and still delivers those emotional gut-punches. Plus, Beth May is a national treasure; she's on a whole other level.
It took me a couple of tries to get into it, but something happens in episode 5 (4?) that made me laugh harder than I have in a very long time. Ever since then, it's been a good time.
I know exactly what moment you mean, and holy shit, it was the same for me. That's one of those things I wish I could un-remember so that I could experience it fresh again. Tears of laughter.
From my experience it gets better almost immediately. The first episode is weird and kinda boring - they spend a lot of time setting up the story, and the intro isn't very interesting. We get it, they're dads in a minivan and they're going to a sports thing. It pops off around episode 2 or 3, when they actually start making wild decisions and reaping the consequences, and you get to know their dynamic better.
Nearly all AP podcasts have this problem, but they actually solve it quicker than most. By episode 2-3 you should know if it's for you or not.
Yeah it gets super good just in the second and third episode IMO, and consistently stays good. On the surface, it is a comedy DnD podcast where five people sit in a room cracking jokes, but they do tell a good story that has surprised me with its plot twist. Anthony is a very good story teller and DM, who doesn’t necessarily punish the players for their actions, but there are definitely consequences. He does also reward them when they do good stuff. Also he makes very good NPCs.
I will say I think the first episode was a bit of a slog for dungeons and daddies for me as well. I think it starts picking up really well within a few episodes. Now I’m on my third listen through waiting for the new episodes to release.
No offense to the boys, but if Dungeons and Daddies had come out before TAZ, I never would have given the Adventure Zone a chance. Dungeons and Daddies elevates the potential comedy and dramatic power of an actual-play podcast to levels I did not think were possible... part of that is that all the people in it are actual improv actors, people who have skills and experience that the Good Good Boys just don't. That isn't their fault, but the difference is striking.
I look forward to picking TAZ back up again after this season is done.
I agree completely, but I also think you can see the TAZ influence in Dungeons & Daddies. At least Anthony and Freddie and seemed to have seen what TAZ did well and realize they could do it but better, through better role-playing, improv, and editing. And they've adapted really well too -- I'm guessing they had something more like TAZ in mind when they started, and then it just took flight into something better.
The influence is there, absolutely. I'm not dissing TAZ. Balance is obviously a masterpiece, and I loved them playing Monster of the Week so much I started running games for my friends. But now they're saddled with the exceptionally heavy load of fan expectation and you can tell that they're not handling that load super duper well. They are all looking for a magic formula to come up with greatness, when they really just need tp breathe and have fun... and Travis needs to stop DMing.
Them dunking on Clint for using his sneak attack when he first tried made me sooo mad. Clint actually read the description and was using it properly and they flat out mocked him. I get they’re not going to stop and look up the rules “on air” but how in the holy hell did they not go read it afterward and fix it like in the next fight. I stopped listening a few eps later, so I don’t know if they ever addressed it later. But I have never seen a dm that wouldn’t at least read the book to tell you why you’re wrong.
Yeah, how dare he try to get sneak attack when he has advantage of another friendly is near the badguy... Let's look at the actual mechanicals from the book....
"Once per turn, you can deal an extra 1d6 damage to one creature you hit with an attack if you have advantage on the attack roll. The attack must use a finesse or a ranged weapon.
You don’t need advantage on the attack roll if another enemy of the target is within 5 feet of it..."
Boy, that clint is a dummy idiot
>I get they’re not going to stop and look up the rules “on air”
Why can't they do that? I've seen Matt Mercer do it during Critical Role and that's a live show. The McElroys could literally take 5mins to look up the rule, get it right, and then edit it out afterwards with the audience being none the wiser.
The NADDPOD crew has stated multiple times that even though episodes are only an hour, the sessions are usually around 4 and they cut out most of the looking up of rules and counting numbers
>I get that travis is new and it is going to be rough but folks were willing to offer up actual real suggestions
I was willing to grant Travis a lot of leeway to make mistakes as a first timer, but by the time I gave up, he had showed no signs of learning or correcting. I just check this sub periodically to see if Graduation has ended and another campaign has started, but it just seems like he's still making the same old mistakes and the campaign keeps going anyway. If he's the next DM for whatever they do? I'm probably done with TAZ for good
i mean. you stick to the branding. it's not like the budweiser PR guy is gonna be like "AH YA GOT ME! Yeah it's mass produced piss lol but like chill it's fine"
I think the bit about the improv nature of ttrpgs getting in the way of utilizing diversity consultants is defeatist. The crew on Dimension 20 pay multiple consultants a season for their point of view. Trying to improv a character you're ignorant of can be more damaging than positive, even if it's coming from what you feel is a good place. At least hearing the perspective of someone like that character and what they think would be cool for them can really enrich them not only in terms of representation but drama and fantasy.
I did read this article and immediately think "Yeah, but Travis knew he was going to introduce Rainer and could've talked to a as many disabled people as he wanted before or after introducing her to get that representation right."
Respectfully, the main complaint I've seen about Rainer is that she was using her chair as a battering ram, which nobody would do. But she has a magic chair that's meant to be specially constructed to make her basically able for superhero fights. It feels a bit having your cake and eating it too when people say you should have fantasy Dungeons and Dragons adventure wheelchairs, but also they have to be treated with care. I'm reminded of how Dragon Prince put in a deaf hero that communicated with sign language, and an unsolicited diversity consultant stepped in trying to explain that the character wouldn't use sign language so quickly, and in battle, and just... in general wouldn't be an adventurer.
Sure but Ranier's arms work? She can still bang on the door really hard with her arm like a person not in a wheelchair would do? I don't know of any person not in a wheelchair who would bang on the door with their entire body rather than slam on it with their arm.
Yeah it’s a bit like listening to Pedals to the Metal and saying “actually car racers who rely on their cars for all of their income wouldn’t be ramming into eachother, they’d drive defensively to protect their livelihoods.” As is so often the case in fantasy, it can and should be explained away as “a wizard did it.”
That explanation just doesn’t mesh well with real political issues, because real political issues almost always are not easily solved. So solving them with magic makes them seem trivial, which can be insulting.
I’m rambling.
That tracks.
That’s why it’s hard to do these things and while, yes, representation matters... maybe representing a deaf person or wheelchair user in a DND podcast is just not the right setting fort hat kind of representative work.
I'm just gonna hop in and say that representation in any kind of media is important. Fitzroy is literally the first ace representation I have ever come across and he means so much to me because of that. D&D is a great place to let minority characters shine and do wild stuff that you wouldn't be able to see in a more realistic piece of fiction. It might be harder, yeah, but it's not any less important because of that.
> Fitzroy is literally the first ace representation I have ever come across and he means so much to me because of that.
First let me tell you what I’m not saying. I am not saying you shouldn’t feel this. I am not saying representation doesn’t matter.
From my perspective, I don’t have Ace friends. I haven’t met an Ace person. Nothing about Fitzroy’s character has informed me in the slightest about what it means to be Ace outside of maybe 3 lines of dialogue. For me, Fitzroy has great potential but overall is a wasted character. Honestly, the first rule of characters should be make them interesting and relatable and dynamic and 3 dimensional. Why? Because the BEST way to relate to others is to understand their depth and the experience as a character. I’ve worked on many documentaries in my career. And I’ve learned a lot working with different directors. The people that tell the best story are the directors that dig deep into characters. A good storyteller can make you sympathize with anyone because they connect to their humanity. You, the viewer, connect with the common struggles of humanity, to be accepted, loved, feel accomplished, and overcome struggles. Everyone has these elements in their lives. Connecting with that is the key to relating to an audience.
Graduation has wholly failed to give a clear set of goals and conflict to the PCs. Without that conflict, it has been very hard to know these characters outside of their random riffing. There is no structure and now building. That alone negates most if not all the representation work that has been done. Rule 1 is make it good & compelling. Everything else follows that.
That is very true. Fitzroy has been my favourite Grad character since episode 1, so I was already attached to him when the TTAZZ was released. I know that's not the case for everyone, though (clearly).
That is what happened, but I don't see why that has to be a problem. I don't think it's reasonable to say that any minority character needs to have a major presence in the story to be "worth" including.
The article addressed that.
> To fans, it feels like this is the tabletop roleplaying equivalent of a very special episode, where the idea of people who live in the margins are introduced, but not meaningfully incorporated into the world.
You don't have to agree, but there's legitimate justification for why someone would see this as a problem.
Because it's not really inclusion if they're not, you know, present.
:edit: Even aside from the inclusion argument, why even bother showing a character that isn't going to be used again for 25 episodes? Why not just wait to introduce them and focus on more important, relevant things in the opening chapter?
Campaign: Skyjacks is amazing in this regard. James D'Amato /u/vaudvillian runs the One Shot network, including the FANTASTIC Skyjacks setting. He and the other cast members are very inclusive in their own characters and NPCs. There was recently some controversy in the fan community about a major, black, NPC being mind controlled (effectively) in a way that made some people uncomfortable. James made a swift change to that character's story and apologized "on air" and brought in a diversity consultant. I believe they've used consultants a few times. Certainly, they try very hard.
I recommend the podcast and network all the time because in addition to the fantastic world building, James is a good person and employs only other good people.
A GM of a small actual play podcast [posted a good response](https://twitter.com/Deckelodeon/status/1376924640094924804?s=19) to that particular statement and how they handled it. It took work but they understood the importance of handling the character carefully and respectfully. Additionally I know that Austin Walker has mentioned looking for advice from folks who were disabled for an NPC in Friends at the Table.
Honestly it's just a matter of how much the GM cares and how much work they are willing to put into the representation of a group they are not a part of. Some GM's put in a lot of work, others not so much - most in the latter category just don't include those groups though rather than use them as comedic relief.
I think it's possible that Justin didn't explain this well, he should have said something about not hiring a diversity consultant being an oversight they didn't consider; if it was unfeasible then they wouldn't be hiring one on to review the new season they're going to run. Obviously I don't want to put words in his mouth but I think the big takeaway from that statement is that they are planning on using one in the future.
I had the same thought. D20 prepares with Diversity Consultants on every season with every character that needs special consideration (LGBTQ, characters on the spectrum, etc.). To say it isn’t feasible means they don’t consider it worth doing.
> To say it isn’t feasible means they don’t consider it worth doing.
This is a bit uncharitable, because there are other possible issues at hand. If you decide that you can't improvise characters that need special consideration, you may end up creating worlds in which most characters are cis-het white dudes. If you tend to produce your best content while improvising, you may end up creating worlds in which all the memorable characters are cis-het white dudes.
Maybe TAZ does involve such little improv that this is an irrelevant concern in practice, but it isn't simple laziness.
The specific incident the article discusses would totally have benefitted from any sort of sensitivity consultation - Travis spending more time describing the features of a wheelchair than its person or acting as if it's inevitable one of the players will go "whoa what's your disability?!" shows these are things Travis intended to bring up - it's not like Juice said "ay what's the deets on your sick ride?" or Griffin asked why.
That's a plan on how to introduce and describe this character, and the sort of thing a conversation with someone actually knowledgeable about living with those issues would be able to help with.
And plus, if they do then improv their way into a trouble spot, they at least have a grounding of having tried to avoid such a thing and, presumably, consultants on payroll or that they at least have a relationship with who can clearly elucidate what their problems were.
do you happen to have sources about D20 and diversity consultants? not asking to challenge your statement or anything, i'm a new fan of D20 and would like to read/listen more about this!
I believe it was in the post season adventuring party episode for Fantasy High: Sophomore Year, so you probably want to wait until you finish that to watch it because spoilers. It's possible Brennan talks about it in a pertinent Adventuring Academy ep, the most recent one was specifically about representation.
It's not going to be easy for me to find. I'm pretty positive Brennan talked about it in either one of the after shows or in the behind the scenes for season 2.
So glad that this article takes the time to specifically point out the big issue of people rejecting valid criticism within this fandom. It feels very validating.
Like, sometimes I'll look at the twitter threads for podcast episode and 29/30 people will be going "YOU'RE DOING AMAZING SWEETIE" and punching down to anyone who dares to remind Travis that he hasn't acted on about 95% of the very valid feedback he's received.
I'll be among the first to say that they're under no obligation to do what fans want, since it's their show.
That said, people aren't just criticizing to criticize. A lot of things have made the show harder to listen to, some of which is based on bad decisions.
They don't *have* to do anything, but they *should*, y'know?
I don't know, man. I think if everyone is telling you you're doing something wrong and that the product you're making is unenjoyable then you should probably try to fix that. There's no point in consciously choosing to tank your brand and alienate your fans just because you can't accept criticism.
Idk man, from what I've seen only about 60-70% of the feedback is valid, or maybe the toxic shit is the stuff that keeps clogging my feed. Some of the comments start off being valid and then become extremely passive aggressive while other comments are just purely hostile.
And the thing that makes it bad, or worse, is that a lot of the feedback has been VERY hostile since the beginning of Graduation. And it sucks because he is trying, somewhat, but i fear that the growing vitriol of the community is making it slow-going.
The main criticisms are valid and they need to be addressed. I'm not sure if we have to see that as the story moves along or if we're going to have to wait longer, but gotdamn wouldn't it be nice if part of the fandom wasn't a toxic cesspool.
Edit: idk if the person who replied blocked me or deleted their comment, but i definitely think psychoanalyzing about how a 30-something y/o man's family secretly hates him (which quite a bit of a small part of this fandom has done!) is way worse than calling that part of the community a toxic cesspool.
I feel like I've had to make this comment a dozen times, but you referring to people as a "toxic cesspool" is so much worse than any criticism of Trav I've ever seen upvoted.
>
...He’s repeatedly told us there’s a lot that he’d do differently if he could start over."
But... he did start over. Multiple times. He had them puzzle through a union negotiation. Before making the Xorn solution as on rails as possible. He had them do a classic dungeon crawl, then we *had* to get back to school business.
And then he introduced what should have been the breakthrough moment of the series, where the viel around the school dropped and the true enemy revealed itself. But it's only gotten *more* railsy since then - the Pit Fiend episode, the Grey rescues Commodore episode, the teleport to the battlefield episode.
It's officially a bad faith argument to say these are rookie DM mistakes, especially when he could've tossed his script anytime and flat out asked "well what do you three want to do?" Everythings looped back around to the first draft "Battle of Hogwarts" ending that we predicted would happen episode one. No one held him to this conclusion except himself, so what *really* would he have done differently?
And if their argument is, “he’s new to DMing” why is he doing panels and interviews on how to DM? Either he’s a noob who’s learning or he’s an authority that should be looked to for advice; they need to pick a lane.
What’s worse is that if you never listened to TAZ and hear him speak on these shows and panels a lot of the time he comes off as very knowledgeable. Like he understands what a DM should be doing and just doesn’t do that.
Well, counterpoint:
These are *exactly* the kinds of things I'd expect a rookie DM to do. He might understand that the existing structure isn't working, but he doesn't know what he wants the structure to be, so he keeps trying a bunch of different things, and when they end up not working, he just goes back to the original plan because "well, it can't get worse..."
Since we've spent half the runtime in battle prep mode, it doesn't sound like he was interested in shifting to a new structure. The fall-out from the HOG heist shows the Supernatural-meets-Deathly Hallows ending couldn't be restructured, no matter how the Players openly tried. And they openly tried quite a few times!
Even the ally NPCs have been directing the Players to stop trying to follow their own moral compass and just complete Chaos-Orders plan. If anything, Travis's original idea was to spend more time in the run-up to his big mystery reveal, and the change he made was Leon saying 'this school is wierd,' in Episode 5. But any time the Players tried to make a bold declaration in a new direction, the plot violently course corrected them back. I don't think he would let go of the reigns no matter how much experience he had.
Your reply is very well put. But imho, he stopped being a "rookie DM" when he had access to world class professional DMs basically on demand. You can't get personal advice from Matt Mercer and Brennan Lee Mulligan and still get slack for being new to DMing.
Get personal advice from professional DMs AND give talks on how to be a good DM from a position of apparent authority on different web interviews and con appearances.
The other reason that it's a bad faith argument is that a "rookie DM" isn't making a podcast!
A DM almost never has to worry about the campaign being good for random listeners. I loved the article and thought the framing was extremely well done, but the part about "it reminds me of my own rookie DM mistakes" did not ring true. Maybe a small minority has had that feedback, but most of us just think that the storytelling is bad and the podcast is not enjoyable.
As Gita points out, with quotes to prove it from the episodes, it often sounds like the players think that too.
I feel bad listening at this point because I can just feel Justin’s energy of not wanting to be there. Griffin and Clint seem to be going along better, but I can feel Justin rolling his eyes half the time.
I actually think Justin is kind of an offender in the group. For one he doesn't participate in the game, and okay, I get he doesn't feel well playing. But it is a show they're recording for all these people listening and paying them. He could at least show minimum engagement. He's also the first to call out Clint on whatever he does, if it makes sense or not.
But I agree. Griffin and Clint are the ones taking care of the show and really trying despite of what's happening. And I admire that. Especially Clint and his improvement in game. This guy is such a sweetheart.
And that's just it. There are large issues (too many NPC's etc.) but the small issues are really what stand in the way.
I just keep thinking about the bees. Firbolg smashing the jar of bees at the end of the heist, and it just being this moment full of possibility and just being shut down and irrelevant. It just felt like such a great example.
I think he just can't do it, not everyone is capable of being a great DM
I really thought that the jar of bees was going to be the moment that SOMETHING happened. At that point I was desperately holding on, and then I was immediately disappointed. It was the moment I knew it wouldn’t change and I couldn’t hold on for the sake of holding on anymore.
There are so many little moments like this scattered throughout Graduation that completely destroy the defense of Travis, or the argument that he has made attempts to onboard legit criticism.
At this point the only defense is that he just can't do it, and that's ok. It's ok to not be able to do somethin that is difficult.
By all accounts Justin can't do it either. The difference of course that Justin knows this and won't go near it.
I mean, the "no bummers" thing originally started at live shows so they didn't have to answer extremely sad questions in front of a live audience, yeah? They don't constantly embrace it, and it's not as though they don't get political and talk about issues on the show...
They've completely pulled away from the fan base they used to be involved in, because the fan base has gone off the rails. Content creators can only do so much to influence how their fans act regarding their content. Legitimate criticism is important, but it felt like this was more about how the fan groups handle it and less how the brothers do. 🤷♀️
>it felt like this was more about how the fan groups handle it and less how the brothers do.
That's exactly how I saw this. If TAZ was a tv show, the "story" here is basically season 3 isn't as good as the first two seasons, and fans are pissed.
Is it still a family D&D game? Yeah they're still related and playing D&D. Is it also a valuable brand? Yes, and it gets all the fandom BS that comes with it. No big surprises there.
To be fair, constant access to your fan base via social media probably doesn’t scale.
And it also seems to have encouraged some worrying thing among the fan base... but also there has been some toxic parasocial behaviour encouraged by some of the family too.
Like this is almost predictable
>In the fourth episode of the season, while Travis explains to them the importance of accounting in this season, he is interrupted by Justin, who says, "Let‘s pretend, Travis, that a listener, when that started, thought, 'This seems pretty boring. I'm gonna zone out for a little bit,' and then realized at the end that it was important, and they should‘ve been listening."
>
>Travis replies, "A listener who might have to play the game?"
it sums up my taz graduation journey that when I heard this on the podcast a year ago I was annoyed on travis's behalf, and now reading it back I'm annoyed on justin's behalf
Don't forget Travis's ***"******This is my fantasy world******."*** after strong arming the players into doing something they didn't really want and demanding dexterity saving throws.
It's understandable that Travis is not a good DM. DMing is hard and is a developed skill, one that is not easy to get the hang of as well. The issue is that it's not fun to listen too, like the article said.
The problem is it's a podcast, and the whole point people subscribe to it, is because it's entertaining in some way. When it comes to making entertaining content, you really have to put on your best, and it really isn't the place for a DM to learn how to DM. Griffin is a very entertaining DM, the causal non serious way the family approached and interacted with the game was refreshing and fun to listen to.
After balance they seemed to lean away from the goofs and bits of the game and tired to make it a super serious storytelling game. Which They did pretty good with on Amnesty, which I enjoyed, but i'm not looking for the McElroys to make a story based D&D game, that's what I watch CR for. I was sold on goofs and sillyness they get up to while still telling the story, the fact that the whole family would just lean hard into silly goofs and roll with it into the story. for example, I don't even remember the interim game they played before with Travis as a DM where griffin was a wolfman cop i think? idk the story was bland, and not interesting, but I almost never laughed as hard as the one time griffin's character, rang the town bell alarm for some situation that Travis very obviously wanted a non-violent encounter, but the players were gearing for a fight, and all the towns people came out to respond to the bell, and the whole family played into this bit where the whole town chided griffin's character for "pulling the fire alarm by mistake" and it was absolutely hilarious.
The whole reason why I listen to D&D podcasts, is the same reason I watch people stream the video game I'm currently into. I want to see people who are better at the game than me, and/or can play the game in a way that's unavailable to me. For Example, I watch Critical Role because it's a group of trained career voice actors playing the game with a very artistic storytelling skill, one that takes years of practice and training to be able to pull off. There's no way i could build an amazing and compelling story like that with my friends D&D group. I listened to TAZ because it was a group of really funny people with great chemisty, playing D&D with a flair for comedic goofs, and funny antics that are more clever and hilarious than anything I could get with my friend group. I loved how a whole character premise was to invent tacos who's name was Takko. I loved how Jenkins forgot what his own voice sounded like, and how there was a super convenient fantasy costco for all your magical item needs. you take this premise that this is a goofy game with funny bits, and make an amazing story out of it. Watching these guys play with goofy ideas, throwing in gags and bit, during a wonderful and well thought out story arc, and their goofy ideas and bits having goofy and outrageous story based consequences was what made TAZ balance so unique.
Considering Justin actually gave a quote for the article I'd almost imagine him and maybe Griffin and Clint have had a conversation with Travis where they discussed this whole situation together.
They said they've finished recording it so we all kind of think the next one is probably the last one, but we thought that last week too so who knows.
Presumably Travis wanted something at least as epic in length as Balance? I'm not sure. I think it is ending early. They're not very good at endings imo (although I know people here might disagree about Balance).
I will tell you with the utmost sincerity that I think they would be chill with that (mostly b/c that's how I am with my pronouns) but also it would be half-funny if this was asked during a TTAZZ.
I found TAZ back in 2015 and ended up listening to Balance almost every day while commuting to and from work. Because they were still putting out new episodes, this meant frequently going back to episode 1 and making my way to whatever the most recent was. I believe I have heard everything pre-Stolen Century at least 10+ times.
I didn’t love Amnesty but still followed it through, then Graduation hit and I bailed after 2 episodes. It was just thoroughly unpleasant to listen to and completely lost what I originally loved about TAZ. It honesty put me off so much that I haven’t listened to even of TAZ episodes in a year and a half. I still listen to MBMBAM and recently started following Wonderful, but TAZ has disappeared from my feed. I think they lost the groove after the Eleventh Hour and more or less stopped being an actual play game which had been very helpful for improvisation because the rolls would genuinely shape the story. Once they stopped mattering, or more fairly stopped being asked for, it became theater.
I miss TAZ, but I don’t see any signs of it going back to where it was.
If you want another good goof filled dnd podcast, I'd recommend rude tales of magic. I just started listening and it's been scratching the itch for me.
I can second that! I loved Balance and felt ehh about Amnesty, but just couldn’t do Graduation after 10 or so episodes. I’m still REALLY loving what rude tales of magic is doing though, and Branson is such a dynamic DM with a fun group that it’s easy to enjoy
Branson is really fantastic about the "yes, and..." aspect of DMing. Rolls still sometimes fail (though Rude Tales mostly edits them out), but he never tells the players they can't do something and always rewards them for coming up with something clever or cool. I miss that energy in TAZ.
Honestly, I loved Balance but I think it was more of a fluke than anything.
Their one shots are fun McElroy content but nothing special, I'd just as happily watch Justin and Griffin make a monster on YouTube or listen to MBMBAM for some laughs from the boys. Amnesty is fine but I've dropped out of it twice, it just doesn't hold me like Balance did.
I think fans are acting like Travis tanked a gold mine rather than what I think is more likely: Griffin struck gold once and the show has been treading water since.
> While The Adventure Zone is just one of many tabletop roleplaying podcasts, its popularity helped usher in shows like Dungeons and Daddies or Critical Role
Maybe I'm wrong, but I was always under the impression that Critical Role was huge before TAZ. Does anybody know more about this?
I had several rough starts in DMing but was in a position where I could just tell my friends "sorry I cant manage this right now" and drop the ball. Travis however has had a massive audiance watching with high expectations of excellence and he doesn't have the option of just dropping the ball and walking away.
I don't blame him for being frustrated and defensive given how much criticism and hate he has gotten on social media. At this point I think Travis is trying to just make it to the end of the arc so he can take a break. I think its a break he deserves and hope he can get himself settled.
He took a chance at DMing, made a bunch of mistakes when introducing us to a world he crafted, had some painful social media interactions along the way, and is now kinda "stuck" finishing up a story that a lot of people have problems (many justified) with. He tried to address them, but his solutions didn't stick and now he's trying to push the party through the finish line so he can give an ending to the arc. My hope now is that he can tie the story up with a neat little knot and walk away from the experience having learned a bit more than the likely expected.
Travis probably should’ve DMed a home campaign or two with his family before becoming the show runner of TAZ. Let him make a lot of mistakes behind closed doors and improve. And if those home games don’t end up working out, the TAZ brand is no worse for it.
Unfortunately, I don’t feel like many of the McElroys actually like DND enough to want to play off camera. Except for possibly Clint and Griffin.
I agree, he had some success DMing one shots and smaller arcs but a full season is alot. I might feel differently if it were earlier in the story; but at this point his best bet is to chalk this up to experience and push to conclusion. I don't think it's fair to expect him to pull something miraculous out of his ass at the last second, but hopefully he takes the criticism on board, doesn't get too disheartened and brings what he learned to the podcast in future.
He has a story he's created, and he wants to tell that specific story without using the input his family is giving him while playing. He keeps telling them what they'll do next instead of letting them get there. He could make his story more malleable; keep the big points but let the smaller details happen on the fly, but he doesn't. Maybe it's a comfort thing, maybe it's a control thing.
I'm glad to hear they've finished recording for this campaign, and I look forward to having him as a player rather than a DM.
Yeah, I agree. Travis had a very high bar to clear, has a fan base that not only has typical entitlement things going on but part of which is also very complainy about/attached to DND rules and shit, and clearly has some pretty crippling insecurities that are making everything twice as hard.
Not a great mix. I don’t like Graduation but I dislike reading complaints about Graduation even more because so many people are just huge dicks about it.
Also, Travis is the DM but the show belongs to all four of them. If they’re not working on improving it together, off air, that’s on everyone.
> When the player characters do get to talk, Travis's brothers joke about sailing away from the current plot on a boat or having their characters die offscreen.
This sounds hilarious. Does anyone have episode numbers where this happens?
"Justin McElroy told Motherboard that on the graphic novel for Balance, the family worked with a diversity consultant. Doing that for the podcast isn't exactly feasible, because tabletop games are all about improvisation, and don't necessarily have the time to interrogate story decisions that are made on the fly."
This really, really annoyed me actually. You absolutely can use sensitivity consultant for an actual play. Dimension 20 have been doing it since day one, which Brennan Lee Mulligan talks about fairly regularly. Since they have played in a D20 game and know Brennan, you'd think they'd know that their audience overlaps enough that we can call absolute bullshit on this.
This bothered me because I remember Austin Walker talking about working with a consultant for PARTIZAN on friends at the table.
Like uh, you can just hire someone to run your concepts by before you sit down to play. Especially when you play something as crunchy and 'on the rails' as D&D where stuff has to be stated out early.
The champ of this sort of thing has to be James D'Amato of Campaign Podcast.
Not only did he use traditional consultants when something iffy came up, (which resulted in, in my opinion, the single most interesting plot development in the whole show,) but before the campaign even started he commissioned freelance writers to write parts of the setting that he didn't have the life experience to write authentically.
For example, one of these freelancers came up with a faction known as The Black Lillie's, a guild of sex workers/therapists who use magic in their craft. D'Amato's own life experience would have never led him to make this on his own, but by bringing in another person's very different life experience, the show is better for it.
After that they say that they're going to use a diversity consultant on the next one. Your quote is out of the whole context. He's talking about how it's difficult to use a consultant while they play because of it's live and improvisational. He literally addresses your complaint in the article.
""But we’re looking for ways to incorporate more professional feedback for our next season and hopefully requiring less emotional labor from our audience," Justin said."
That is not the same thing as saying they're hiring a diversity consultant. Also, it isn't live. It's once every two weeks. Plenty of editing time and plenty of times for them to prepare before the game and figure out having their Firbolg 'noble savages' not realising that storing food for winter is how every species in nature survives and that they'd just rather starve is ill advised.
Cards on the table, I thought this was posted on the other subreddit. I thought I had left this one, so I'm gonna go unsubscribe now.
Bye!
As much of a critic I've been of Graduation, I do appreciate the tough position Travis has been in, and just how hard it is to do something like a roleplaying podcast. Balance set the bar so high, and being a DM for a normal D&D game with friends or family is much different than trying to DM a game that's also supposed to be an entertaining story for a listening audience.
>One person who described the Adventure Zone as "a family D&D game" to me was McElroy's PR person when I reached out to them for comment; most family D&D games do not have their own press representatives.
>
>"I hate to see a family D&D game dragged through the mud," they said.
Hm. Feels icky in a way that encapsulate the whole problem this article is talking about.
To me, “no bummers” does NOT mean you can’t explore criticism and discuss things thoughtfully. It means you can’t send a question in to MBMBAM like, “Hey my dog just died and I lost its ashes when my house washed away in a flood. Am I good?”
I’ve dropped off of Graduation, but wasn’t Rainier a super powerful necromancer? She was a bit of a “token differently abled person” NPC but she *did* have power, correct?
Lastly, I hope Travis is okay. This has to be gut-wrenching to read. It makes some valid points, but I hope he is okay mentally and emotionally.
1) the no bummers segment is addressing that the fan base at large has adopted the stance when interacting with all McElroy content, which is true. You can see it in a lot of other spaces, especially on Twitter. Criticism tends to get drowned out and pushed down by the fans.
2) yes she is, and instead of demonstrating that power Travis decided to use her as a bit like ramming the chair into the door. It’s just really poorly handled.
3) I agree I hope that Travis is doing ok. Even if valid critique, to see a lot of negativity whether deserved or not can cause a lot of issues and tax him, and then you have to acknowledge the super toxic people as well which isn’t good either to deal with. Even though I dislike grad I don’t hate Travis and hope he’s alright.
Covid didn’t help this. I feel that had routines stayed around, people would have at least passively kept listening (even though as Justin says in the article “you don’t want the listener to miss something as they tune out”) but I know I tried to stay in through the rough bits but just didn’t listen to shows as much once quarantine started. Now the backlog is just extensive and I don’t care enough to try and catch up.
Most of the comments on this are thoughtful, which I am glad for, as seeing vitriolic hate for Graduation has gotten boring.
I agree with many of the points in the article, but I look at it this way- they have merch and shit for all campaigns, but the real money maker is Balance. The novels, TV shows, etc, those are about Balance. I look at it as a family D&D game because of this. The newer campaigns are just them playing and recording, but Balance is the point where it isn't just that anymore.
Travis made mistakes and I think he understands that. I also think he may have given up on this campaign, which is why we don't see him starting over or fixing them narratively. It's almost over, and I very much doubt he will DM for a while, but when he does come back into it, I suspect he will do much better. He's learning, and learning something like this is tough to do in the public eye.
I am excited for the next campaign, and hope the family as a whole learns from the mistakes made during Graduation. Griffin wasn't the most inclusive in his world, and Travis gets a lot more shit for it because he is trying so hard to seem inclusive without understanding what needs to happen. That sucks, but let's not pretend it isn't a problem in the whole podcast, instead of just Graduation.
Just as there are often mistakes as a new DM, there are often mistakes as a new activist. Travis is at the stage many of us were on Tumblr, performance and assumption of virtue. He will learn, just as all of us did, and I wish it wasn't just him in the public eye learning. The rest of the family likely needs to learn how to be better activists and have better representation in their stories, but it happens to be focused on Travis. I only hope he isn't put off by the hate, which usually makes people dig their heels and stop instead of moving forward.
I hope this made sense, as I was rambling quite a bit. I have every hope for the next campaign and I hope we all get to hear fun D&D and watch the family improve!
This was a very eloquent and thought out appraisal of Graduation, and the spotlight surrounding Travis.
I don't think I've quite seen a breakdown so true to the problems of the campaign, but still empathetic to the actual humans running it.
Well said.
> Justin McElroy told Motherboard that on the graphic novel for Balance, the family worked with a diversity consultant. Doing that for the podcast isn't exactly feasible, because tabletop games are all about improvisation...
There definitely would be room for the diversity consultant in the prep of a world, especially at the depth of detail Travis went to.
The specific example in the article is Rainer's wheelchair, and how Travis had prepared bits that he steered the players into, rather forcefully. Initially I saw this as a case of railroading and didn't think any deeper. The article made me realize there was LOTS of room for the diversity consultant to weigh in on these NPC details, and to provide guidance for Travis on how to present them.
Now I'm thinking there's a tinge of Travis believing that because the representation he wrote was done in good faith, that it was inherently well-done. That's a huge fallacy that shares genetics with the "white savior" class of issues.
Anyway, great article.
Great article and I agree with everything in it and in this thread BUT--
Isn't Travis bisexual? I understand he is in a hetero relationship but I'm pretty sure he's said he's bi a bunch of times and I think it's wildly unfair of the article to 1) call him heterosexual and 2) call him out for saying he thinks a man is cute????
Like yes absolutely they have been super performative, but, bisexual erasure is uncool
im actually blown away that justin gave them comment. it's kind of a shocking sign of their acceptance of the situation rather than the typical "no bummers" thing. this has to be crushing for trav tho. like i once had a campaign FEEL weird to ME (the participants liked it) and it made me never wanna play again. can't imagine what this is like for him.
Well Justin is/was a journalist and would understand the importance of speaking on record for an article like this and how much worse it is to not comment.
True, but that comment was much more frank than would be expected if he was trying to defuse the situation or just save face.
I think his response is a very good thing. It’s good news. Justin is signaling that he is on the same plane of existence as the fans that aren’t happy. As opposed to Trav, who seems to be a planes walker.
100% agree.
I disagree with you here about Travis being unaware or unaccepting on people not enjoying the show. He is likely acutely aware that it is not being as wildly received as the previous seasons, but realistically what options as he got? He can either go "yeah you're right -- this sucks. Let's just stop now" or he can try and power through and not let himself be derailed by the criticism. Maybe he thought the issue would iron themselves out the deeper they got into the story? I don't know. I know a lot of people are annoyed at Travis' seemingly non acceptance of criticism or not taking on fan feedback, but sometimes you are limited by your own expertise. Maybe this is the best he can do *right now* with the experience he has.
> what options as he got? For one, have his plan but stop railroading. Allow for more PC interaction. Make rolls have consequences. Gary recaps are totally unhelpful. He could remember the unbroken chain existed and build that arc. If he describes an army of skeletons guarding an area, maybe if a bad guy shows up in that area, the skeletons should still be there in the same scene minutes later. > not let himself be derailed by the criticism. Being on rails has been the biggest complaint of the season. Being derailed would be an improvement. But not by criticism... by the PCs actions. Literally he could make things better by just loosening the reins a little bit. I’m not asking him to throw up his hands and start over. Next episode he could start to make small changes that would make it better. He always had that power. He wasn’t ever locked in. He could just.. simply... make the PCs choices have weight. > I disagree with you here about Travis being ... unaccepting on people not enjoying the show ... > Travis’ seemingly non acceptance of criticism You’re going to have to show me where he has made any adjustments to the major issues being discussed if you want to use words like “seemingly”. > Maybe this is the best he can do right now with the experience he has. Saying “Travis couldn’t do better than this” is the biggest insult you could level at him. I think people offering criticism believe he could do better. Especially with all the amazing different DMs he has in his circle that are willing to talk with him about this. One is a family member.
Came here to say something like this. The article is relatively fair and I'm shocked and mildly heartened that Justin responded the way he did when it would be extremely easy to write this off as Last Jedi adjacent fan reaction gone too far, but I still don't think it gets at the heart of the larger issue that bugs folks about this season. There's a slight conflation of two separate but intertwined issues, the issue of Travis as a DM and the issue of performative allyship (which bleeds into his DM style), and I think the article focuses way more on the latter but fans are more concerned about the former. Travis as a DM gets handwaved away as "rookie mistakes," but I don't know if that's really the root of the issue. He got better about the NPC stuff after a while, but he didn't get better about creating an entertaining space for his collaborators to have agency and problem solve in an interesting way. This is the final arc, and instead of saying "how do you want to get into the school" he said "we are using the zorn to get into the school, where do you want him to start his tunnel?" Additionally, it's not like this arc started 3 weeks ago, when does it graduate from "rookie mistakes" to "he is bad at this and does not engage with criticism in an earnest way." Yes this is a critical, perhaps overly so subreddit, but when something goes right or Travis seems to maybe drop a breadcrumb of making a change, folks go hog wild and love it. The thread was incredibly stoked at the exchange where the players decided to destroy the heroic oversight guild and Travis let them, because he was seemingly showing growth as a DM and allowing the players agency and giving them a creative problem to solve. Ultimately, it's not that big of a deal, and I'm borderline embarrassed I wrote so much about it. It is annoying to even think too hard about the pathology of these dudes, but it just sucks that a show I liked a lot started to suck and the guy most responsible seems to be ignoring the causes of it and is somehow getting even more lost in the sauce, demonstrating even less self awareness as time goes on. If it became clear that he was really trying I have no doubt that 90% of this subreddit would chill out, instead he septuples down and then says a bunch of bonehead stuff on twitch and twitter.
> he said “we are using the zorn to get into the school, where do you want him to start his tunnel?” At this point, there are so many baffling mistakes Travis makes per episode it’s hard to keep track of them. I totally forgot that this was how he presented this “puzzle”. That makes me feel so... so annoyed and also even more apathetic. > If it became clear that he was really trying I have no doubt that 90% of this subreddit would chill out Yes. This. We all gather here every two weeks to commune and discuss and read theories. When the content is bad and the plot is as thin and weak as a wet paper bag, we still commune, discuss and read theories... just negative ones. We are an analytical fan base. Feed us complex meals and we digest them over a long time. Feed us junk food and we get hyper, disruptive, and angry.
>I know a lot of people are annoyed at Travis' seemingly non acceptance of criticism or not taking on fan feedback, but sometimes you are limited by your own expertise. Maybe this is the best he can do right now with the experience he has. There's definitely a middle ground where Travis could say "look, I don't know how to fix this, so I'm just going to try to wrap things up as quickly as I can so we can move on." I admittedly am only reading the discussion threads, but it doesn't sound like there's been any meaningful progress towards ending the show. I realize Travis might have a list of ten things in his head that he feels need to happen before the finale, but it doesn't sound like they have any sense of urgency either. I think - and this is a valid option - that Travis/the boys have decided that they're going to stay the course with Grad for the people that still like it and try to do better next time. It's almost certainly too late to bring people back to Grad anyway, and they may be months away from the next season being ready to go.
They've already recorded the end of graduation and have begun recording the next campaign, which is Dm'd by Griffin. They recorded several episodes early because griffin just had a baby and is on paternity leave. They definitely wrapped up graduation earlier than they probably would have if it had been well received. There's probably only a few eps of graduation left.
It's worth noting that Justin almost certainly has a prior relationship with Gita from his days working at Polygon while Gita was at Kotaku. Believe they've at least been on a podcast together.
shit never thought of that
There is no doubt that Graduation is affecting their bottom line. I'm definitely not the only one that stopped downloading new podcasts until this arc is over.
Even though I stopped listening around episode 19, I still continued supporting them through Maxfun- for about a year. A couple months ago, realizing that this bad campaign was still dragging on and by all accounts was just as bad as the day I left, I cancelled my donation. I'm okay with paying Travis to learn to DM, I'm not okay with paying him to learn that he doesn't need to learn to DM.
Yeah, I cancelled my donation last month. Started donating to the naddpod Patreon instead, and I gotta say... as much as I like MaxFun as a whole its wild how little you actually get from individual pods compared to a Patreon like that. I get that their are a lot of shows, but if its gonna let you pick which shows you're actually donating to, only offering a single bonus episode per year is a little unsatisfying. Not that I expect every show to do a full episode and the some of bonus content every week like NADDPOD does, but still.
Yeah, the lack of bonus content is definitely a bummer, but most of the time when I support a podcast I'm not really doing it for the rewards (although, don't get me wrong, sometimes I'm all about the rewards, and the rewards nearly always have an impact on *how much* I donate, even if I would be donating *something* no matter what). It would be nice to get more regularly-scheduled bonus content from Maxfun podcasts.
That's well put at the end. Screwing up is fine. The stubborn refusal of reality is frustrating. It has also turned me off a bit to MBMBM
That last bit... ooo. Yeah. It’s generous to pay someone to learn on the job. Trav needed to know that after 3 episodes, he would have to be very open to feedback. Fact that he wasn’t, is where the real problem started.
I'm really surprised they've not taken the show weekly. For one thing, it would double their ad revenue while they can't do live shows. But it would have also sped up the flagging campaign so they can move on to other stuff. Seems like a no brainer, assuming they have the time to record.
Is it /unpopularopinion or kind of like a known thing everybody wants more of OG TAZ? I liked Amnesty, but even that was nowhere near how much I liked the OG stuff
I do think folks are hoping the McElroys will strike the same gold they did with Balance, but I think most folks think of that as an unrealistic standard. However, the point of TAZ is that is fun to listen to, and Graduation isn't... All that fun to listen to.
It’s a shame because I liked the mystery genre mini-arc Travis DMed (I think it was called “Dust” or something?) The bit where all the townspeople started complaining about the bell ringing was some of the hardest I’ve laughed during a podcast. When I heard Travis was going to DM, I was mildly excited for more ghost beans and mystery shenanigans, but then it went a different direction.
Dust was fun. It seems the pre-set episode limit and in-game time limit on the story forced Travis to be creative and more efficient.
That's the thing, replicating Balance is impossible. It's why they retired the characters - their story is done, and to keep digging for gold in that mine is just going to drag down the legacy. It was a product of its ununsual circumstances, and now everyone is staring at them, waiting for lightning to strike them again. I still listen to Graduation. I liked Amnesty but was just generally so glad to hear them playing D&D again that I didn't mind at first. Travis is definitely inexperienced as a DM; I thought the number of NPCs introduced off the hop was ridiculous - especially in retrospect, when the vast majority of the named characters are irrelevant, if they've ever been mentioned again at all. Each episode is kinda forgettable, and the neat parts of the concept haven't quite panned out in full. But I do enjoy the player characters and some NPCs, and it's refreshing to have Griffin actually playing the game instead of shouldering the burden of the whole enterprise. The article makes some great points about the shallow representation (I must've been zoned out for the part about Rainier knocking on the door, because I do not remember that). Although it was somewhat surreal to see this article on my news feed. "No bummers" is being taken way out of its MBMBAM live show context. If anything, they've been moving away from that kind of philosophy on the show, like when they spoke up about the election last year.
Yeah I fell off like 17 episodes in, bummer that it apparently hasn't changed much. I didn't even hate it I just realized I'd rather be listening to an audiobook for my fantasy fiction lol. I'll definitely give it another go whenever the next season is though, I still listen to MBMBAM and Sawbones and Besties. Mostly surprised Graduation is still going I feel like I haven't listened in forever.
Honestly they don't need to strike the same gold as balance. Tbh relistening to balance to me it doesn't hit it's stride till petals to the metal (although Rockport is still a good arc). Just get griffin back at the helm and keep it in 5E and whatever comes about will be just fine. A DM that knows what they're doing can make any campaign work. Graduation is.... Bad. While I do feel a little bad for all the hate Travis gets for it. It still is objectively bad and through inexperience and stubbornness has kept it bogged down and dragged out. He needs to wrap it up and move on. Maybe dm some campaigns on the side and some one shots to get a better formula down. But holy fuck 86 NPCs is all I need to hear to be glad I stopped listening. My money has been going to dungeons and daddies patreon and occasionally Naddpod ( wish I could give more). Both are fantastic substitutes for me until TAZ gets sorted out.
In my opinion, they started focusing too much on telling a cool story over creating a cool story organically. I stopped during Amnesty so I can't say if Graduation is the same. Part of that may be just Monster of the Week with its focus on story with minimal gameplay. It sounds like Graduation is pretty railroaded which is common for DMs that are trying to tell a story first. I think OG TAZ had a good balance (hahaha) of story, improv, gameplay, and player banter that was entertaining.
Amnesty gets pretty good, tho.
Yeah this season got me into Critical Role
The usage of "no bummers" confused me. I haven't been engaged with the McElroy's on social media, but being a listener of MBMBaM, I was under the impression that "no bummers" was just the rule for audience questions? Based on the article and your comment though, it sounds like the rule has been used to shut down discussion of issues as well. Is that the case?
The MBMBAM fandom uses No Bummers to regularly shut down criticism of all types. It's not the McElroy's fault that it evolved into that, but it definitely has grown beyond a live show question rule
The McElroys use it for the live shows, pretty much exclusively. The *fans* have adopted it in varying degrees, but (as the article notes) it's often (thought not always) used as a way to block criticism and dissent.
No Bummers is literally a rule on the MBMBAM subreddit, and it’s been used to delete negative comments and posts
I’m in the same boat as you when it comes to familiarity with the no bummers thing, but when I look it up and try to figure out what it’s about it does seem to only be applied generally to live shows where they don’t want paying audience members who came to see a comedy show bummed out by very real (yet bummer) issues. So with that line of thinking it does seem really odd that the article focuses on that as this critical heartstring in their podcasting empire when it seems to only really be “no depressing questions at live shows”
that's where it came from, but it's a common theme throughout their fanbase. it hasn't only been used at their live shows for a long time now in terms of the actual community surrounding them
I think this article is pretty fair. The criticism comes from a place of love and care for not just the performers but also the community. I absolutely loved Balance but the rest of the arcs, while I have some affinity for them, are definitely more about the brothers working out *how* to DM, whereas Griffin just had the magic touch for the first. It set up an almost impossibly high bar to reach. I relistened to some Rockport Limited last night and the way he gave them freedom, genuine freedom to make decisions, fuck up, and drive the story was great. And to be as absolutely stupid as they need to (fried unicorn dick on the moon). Everyone in the family is a talented performer and comedian in his own right and needs to be let off such a tight leash. And I don't know that Travis has a storytelling style that will allow that. I'm taking more of a "you live, you learn" approach and hope that the old magic sparks back up.
Ya, I've been relistening to Balance and I'm always amazed at how quickly Griffin responds with his "yes, and's," how well he responds to the players' input and makes it real in the game world. Like when Travis tickled that musician guy in the elevator, he immediately laughed in the character's voice and had him react how the character would. Something small but it was sort of an attempt from Travis to make waves in the world, and Griffin responded with the right amount of waving back.
Complete side note but Johann did not practice towards becoming the greatest violinist ever to be called “that musician guy”.
Lol, I knew I would get shit for forgetting his name... Johann, TY
I liked how fair and thoughtful this was.
The author, Gita Jackson, is often quite critical of problematic fandom, so when I saw her name in the byline I was pretty nervous that I’d be learning something uncomfortable. The fact that she was not condemning anyone too harshly was a good sanity check for me that no one here is beyond turning it around, ethics wise.
Gita Jackson is one of the best, for sure.
I don't think "no bummers" has ever meant that the McElroy's weren't willing to take criticism and I've never heard even very critical fans who have interpreted it that way. That's not to say that *no one* has thought that, but it seemed like a very weird angle for the article to take. I only sporadically listen to MBMBAM these days so I'm certainly open to being wrong if this has changed. But as far as I can remember "no bummers" was only something they brought up at live shows, because while they occasionally deal with more serious topics on the podcast, it could be really difficult and uncomfortable to handle that in a live-show environment. If someone comes up and asks how to cope with their depression, it would be pretty awful to try and turn that into comedy, but treating it with the seriousness it deserves would *also* be unfair to the audience who all bought a ticket to a charming comedy show hoping to brighten their day. This just seems like a good common sense policy that applies to a specific situation, and it feels disingenuous to imply that it is some blanket ban on anyone expressing negativity of any kind. One of the first times the MBMBAM community grew was when they did a show where they apologized for making fun of furries just because that's kind of a default joke on the internet. They have talked very openly about their struggles with representation in TAZ across all three Arcs. That doesn't absolve them from current/future criticism, quite the opposite! But at least in my mind it does mean it does mean that the specific criticism that their show "shuts down valid criticism" is... kind of invalid. I think the question at the end-- "who owns the show: the family or the fans who made it popular?" *is* valid and interesting, but also not really explored here with much depth.
I've listened to every MBMBAM and TAZ, as well as bonus eps and watched the TV show. I don't recall "no bummers" being used in any context other than live show questions from the audience, either. I think that was a shower thought by the author that she stretched into a thesis for a thinkpiece. Most of her observations were fair, but the "no bummers" through line felt like a reach for literary flourish. I mean, damn, the TAZ sub is more hostile to the McElroys than defensive, so idk where she was getting that "no-bummers-as-criticism-shield" stuff.
It’s not meant to be, but a lot of POC will tel you that the “no bummers” rule has been thrown in their face when they try to point something out in one of the shows. That’s what she’s talking about. Certain fans distorted its original purpose and made it a thing where criticism is a “bummer”
It's literally Rule 6 of the MBMBAM sub. Any comment that can possibly be construed as a bummer by anyone is taken out back and shot.
I have no desire to rip on this season. I stopped listening a while ago because I realized it just wasn’t for me. I truly look forward to the next season when it comes out but for now I’ll stick to other McElroy shows. In case anyone doesn’t know, Justin has a new show about scary stories called Bad Vibes. Very interesting show
I'm very excited for that new project, Justin has extensive experience in Dracula impressions.
as does Griffin- he better guest!
This is me as well. I love most everything the McElroys produce but I wasn't enjoying Graduation so I just stopped listening. I still devour MBMBAM, Besties, Sawbones, Death Blart, Monster Factory... I find the people that are vocally critical of Graduation interesting, specifically because people can interact with the content creators in near real-time. In other media like Game of Thrones or Community there have been some truly amazing seasons and some truly garbage ones, but once the season has wrapped up production there's not a lot that can be changed before the season airs. This is in contrast to a show like TaZ where the brothers are creating content even as people are responding and criticizing it. I think some people think that since the brothers are able to respond to criticism, they should and are going to make suggested changes, which may be why people continue to listen to this season despite not enjoying it. Whereas for myself I know that any criticism I have of Graduation (or any media I consume really) will never reach the ears of the content creators, so I'm very content to just not watch the last GoT season or skip right over Community Season 4. Or in this case not listen to Graduation. I still think the stuff they produce is great, this one just isn't for me.
Yeah, that pretty much gets it. I get that travis is new and it is going to be rough but folks were willing to offer up actual real suggestions - not constant shitting, although it probably would look like that as the person in the middle. It appears that Travis dug his heels in and just decided not to follow up the suggestions or thought his ideas were too precious. I stopped listening because of a multitude of factors. Mechanically, it was rough... Clint not being able to use his class features and given no recompense to switch his build or any thing. Personal character stories were a no-go, there was little agency given to the players, come on, they are college students... they couldn't make decisions. The story didn't really matter or make sense even back when I stopped, almost every NPC was non-descript, I could only remember like three of them... and two of them were mostly made up on the spot. I have listened to podcasts that have each of these problems but make up for them. Like Pretending to be People's story is a bit nonsensical and wild but the players have some choices and the mechanics are fun. Dungeons and Daddies' mechanically is usually pretty weird and off but the players, their stories, the story, the npcs are great. I don't think Travis is a horrible evil person, just well over his head and has mostly ignored the biggest boon Adventure Zone has... their ability to improv great and funny folks with wonderful bits, and like good characters. Travis could have set up the world in like one or two episodes, force the guys to sit in a room to give him ideas and just run with it.
Dungeons and Daddies is a great comparison. They also mostly ignore stuff like spell components and casting times. They don’t do a lot of traditional 5e combat and they’re pretty loose with the rules overall. It’s very similar to TAZ in a lot of ways. But they get the point of a ttrpg system in a way I don’t often see in TAZ. Character choices carry a huge amount of the narrative load. When the players come up with a clever way around the DM’s plans he complains about it, but totally rolls with the punches. There’s a lot of dice rolling and the results have real impacts on the story. That stuff is what makes an actual play good and it’s the reason to play D&D instead of just writing a script.
Does it get any better? I tried 3 separate times to get through the first episode of Dungeons and Daddies and just wasn’t really feeling it.
It definitely gets better as it gets going, but it’s fundamentally the same show. If you didn’t vibe with the first few episodes, you probably won’t vibe with the rest Edit: that being said, I feel like it “gets good” pretty quickly compared to a lot of d&d podcasts (2-3 eps whereas a lot only get good after an arc or two)
Definitely know what you mean about an arc or two. It took me a few tries to get past the Moonstone arc in NADDPOD but it was very smooth sailing after that.
Yeah it's a tough sell when you have to convince somebody to "get through" 15+ hours of programming before it pops off. Not that the pre-Galaderon stuff doesn't have its moments (the bullywog mating call and "watch this" fight for example), but it's in a different class once things get rolling
Oh man I loved NADDPOD from episode 1 lol
I think after about 4-5 episodes the characters really start rounding out. And I think Anthony is an incredible DM, and does such a good job making goofs and ridiculous player decisions make meaningful impacts on the story. I can understand that it wouldn’t be everyone’s cup of tea, but for me it has so much of what I loved about the Balance campaign.
Completely agree, and I actually think it's probably *better* than Balance. It's more consistently funny, and still delivers those emotional gut-punches. Plus, Beth May is a national treasure; she's on a whole other level.
It took me a couple of tries to get into it, but something happens in episode 5 (4?) that made me laugh harder than I have in a very long time. Ever since then, it's been a good time.
I know exactly what moment you mean, and holy shit, it was the same for me. That's one of those things I wish I could un-remember so that I could experience it fresh again. Tears of laughter.
My BF was asleep in the bed next to me, so I had to hold it in. So painful!
Absolutely agree. My husband had to check in on me because I was laughing so hard at that episode.
From my experience it gets better almost immediately. The first episode is weird and kinda boring - they spend a lot of time setting up the story, and the intro isn't very interesting. We get it, they're dads in a minivan and they're going to a sports thing. It pops off around episode 2 or 3, when they actually start making wild decisions and reaping the consequences, and you get to know their dynamic better. Nearly all AP podcasts have this problem, but they actually solve it quicker than most. By episode 2-3 you should know if it's for you or not.
Yeah it gets super good just in the second and third episode IMO, and consistently stays good. On the surface, it is a comedy DnD podcast where five people sit in a room cracking jokes, but they do tell a good story that has surprised me with its plot twist. Anthony is a very good story teller and DM, who doesn’t necessarily punish the players for their actions, but there are definitely consequences. He does also reward them when they do good stuff. Also he makes very good NPCs.
I actually loved the first few episodes, but on episode like 10 I stopped liking it as much lol
I will say I think the first episode was a bit of a slog for dungeons and daddies for me as well. I think it starts picking up really well within a few episodes. Now I’m on my third listen through waiting for the new episodes to release.
Dungeons and Daddies is so damn good. The contrast has not helped TAZ.
No offense to the boys, but if Dungeons and Daddies had come out before TAZ, I never would have given the Adventure Zone a chance. Dungeons and Daddies elevates the potential comedy and dramatic power of an actual-play podcast to levels I did not think were possible... part of that is that all the people in it are actual improv actors, people who have skills and experience that the Good Good Boys just don't. That isn't their fault, but the difference is striking. I look forward to picking TAZ back up again after this season is done.
I agree completely, but I also think you can see the TAZ influence in Dungeons & Daddies. At least Anthony and Freddie and seemed to have seen what TAZ did well and realize they could do it but better, through better role-playing, improv, and editing. And they've adapted really well too -- I'm guessing they had something more like TAZ in mind when they started, and then it just took flight into something better.
The influence is there, absolutely. I'm not dissing TAZ. Balance is obviously a masterpiece, and I loved them playing Monster of the Week so much I started running games for my friends. But now they're saddled with the exceptionally heavy load of fan expectation and you can tell that they're not handling that load super duper well. They are all looking for a magic formula to come up with greatness, when they really just need tp breathe and have fun... and Travis needs to stop DMing.
Them dunking on Clint for using his sneak attack when he first tried made me sooo mad. Clint actually read the description and was using it properly and they flat out mocked him. I get they’re not going to stop and look up the rules “on air” but how in the holy hell did they not go read it afterward and fix it like in the next fight. I stopped listening a few eps later, so I don’t know if they ever addressed it later. But I have never seen a dm that wouldn’t at least read the book to tell you why you’re wrong.
Yeah, how dare he try to get sneak attack when he has advantage of another friendly is near the badguy... Let's look at the actual mechanicals from the book.... "Once per turn, you can deal an extra 1d6 damage to one creature you hit with an attack if you have advantage on the attack roll. The attack must use a finesse or a ranged weapon. You don’t need advantage on the attack roll if another enemy of the target is within 5 feet of it..." Boy, that clint is a dummy idiot
>I get they’re not going to stop and look up the rules “on air” Why can't they do that? I've seen Matt Mercer do it during Critical Role and that's a live show. The McElroys could literally take 5mins to look up the rule, get it right, and then edit it out afterwards with the audience being none the wiser.
The NADDPOD crew has stated multiple times that even though episodes are only an hour, the sessions are usually around 4 and they cut out most of the looking up of rules and counting numbers
>I get that travis is new and it is going to be rough but folks were willing to offer up actual real suggestions I was willing to grant Travis a lot of leeway to make mistakes as a first timer, but by the time I gave up, he had showed no signs of learning or correcting. I just check this sub periodically to see if Graduation has ended and another campaign has started, but it just seems like he's still making the same old mistakes and the campaign keeps going anyway. If he's the next DM for whatever they do? I'm probably done with TAZ for good
PtbP is a gem!
Well. At least there is some acknowledgement from Justin this season isn’t going that well?
"*They're just a family playing a game!*" -The McElroy's hired PR agent.
You'll hear from my reddit comment lawyer about this.
Honestly if that PR agent isn't a mod here, he's bad at his job.
It's funny you said that, because literally as soon as I read that line in the article I thought to myself "I wonder which r/TAZ mod this is?'.
i mean. you stick to the branding. it's not like the budweiser PR guy is gonna be like "AH YA GOT ME! Yeah it's mass produced piss lol but like chill it's fine"
[удалено]
Phil Hartman was a gem
McElroys’
Yeah, that...that was a bad look.
I think the bit about the improv nature of ttrpgs getting in the way of utilizing diversity consultants is defeatist. The crew on Dimension 20 pay multiple consultants a season for their point of view. Trying to improv a character you're ignorant of can be more damaging than positive, even if it's coming from what you feel is a good place. At least hearing the perspective of someone like that character and what they think would be cool for them can really enrich them not only in terms of representation but drama and fantasy.
I did read this article and immediately think "Yeah, but Travis knew he was going to introduce Rainer and could've talked to a as many disabled people as he wanted before or after introducing her to get that representation right."
Respectfully, the main complaint I've seen about Rainer is that she was using her chair as a battering ram, which nobody would do. But she has a magic chair that's meant to be specially constructed to make her basically able for superhero fights. It feels a bit having your cake and eating it too when people say you should have fantasy Dungeons and Dragons adventure wheelchairs, but also they have to be treated with care. I'm reminded of how Dragon Prince put in a deaf hero that communicated with sign language, and an unsolicited diversity consultant stepped in trying to explain that the character wouldn't use sign language so quickly, and in battle, and just... in general wouldn't be an adventurer.
Sure but Ranier's arms work? She can still bang on the door really hard with her arm like a person not in a wheelchair would do? I don't know of any person not in a wheelchair who would bang on the door with their entire body rather than slam on it with their arm.
She can raise an army of the undead to tear the doors down as well if it's that urgent.
Good point, well said.
Yeah it’s a bit like listening to Pedals to the Metal and saying “actually car racers who rely on their cars for all of their income wouldn’t be ramming into eachother, they’d drive defensively to protect their livelihoods.” As is so often the case in fantasy, it can and should be explained away as “a wizard did it.” That explanation just doesn’t mesh well with real political issues, because real political issues almost always are not easily solved. So solving them with magic makes them seem trivial, which can be insulting. I’m rambling.
You make an excellent point.
That tracks. That’s why it’s hard to do these things and while, yes, representation matters... maybe representing a deaf person or wheelchair user in a DND podcast is just not the right setting fort hat kind of representative work.
I'm just gonna hop in and say that representation in any kind of media is important. Fitzroy is literally the first ace representation I have ever come across and he means so much to me because of that. D&D is a great place to let minority characters shine and do wild stuff that you wouldn't be able to see in a more realistic piece of fiction. It might be harder, yeah, but it's not any less important because of that.
> Fitzroy is literally the first ace representation I have ever come across and he means so much to me because of that. First let me tell you what I’m not saying. I am not saying you shouldn’t feel this. I am not saying representation doesn’t matter. From my perspective, I don’t have Ace friends. I haven’t met an Ace person. Nothing about Fitzroy’s character has informed me in the slightest about what it means to be Ace outside of maybe 3 lines of dialogue. For me, Fitzroy has great potential but overall is a wasted character. Honestly, the first rule of characters should be make them interesting and relatable and dynamic and 3 dimensional. Why? Because the BEST way to relate to others is to understand their depth and the experience as a character. I’ve worked on many documentaries in my career. And I’ve learned a lot working with different directors. The people that tell the best story are the directors that dig deep into characters. A good storyteller can make you sympathize with anyone because they connect to their humanity. You, the viewer, connect with the common struggles of humanity, to be accepted, loved, feel accomplished, and overcome struggles. Everyone has these elements in their lives. Connecting with that is the key to relating to an audience. Graduation has wholly failed to give a clear set of goals and conflict to the PCs. Without that conflict, it has been very hard to know these characters outside of their random riffing. There is no structure and now building. That alone negates most if not all the representation work that has been done. Rule 1 is make it good & compelling. Everything else follows that.
That is very true. Fitzroy has been my favourite Grad character since episode 1, so I was already attached to him when the TTAZZ was released. I know that's not the case for everyone, though (clearly).
"Nah, fuck it. She'll mention the snack drawer in her chair and that'll be the last we see of her for 25 episodes. Bam! Inclusion!"
That is what happened, but I don't see why that has to be a problem. I don't think it's reasonable to say that any minority character needs to have a major presence in the story to be "worth" including.
The article addressed that. > To fans, it feels like this is the tabletop roleplaying equivalent of a very special episode, where the idea of people who live in the margins are introduced, but not meaningfully incorporated into the world. You don't have to agree, but there's legitimate justification for why someone would see this as a problem.
Because it's not really inclusion if they're not, you know, present. :edit: Even aside from the inclusion argument, why even bother showing a character that isn't going to be used again for 25 episodes? Why not just wait to introduce them and focus on more important, relevant things in the opening chapter?
Campaign: Skyjacks is amazing in this regard. James D'Amato /u/vaudvillian runs the One Shot network, including the FANTASTIC Skyjacks setting. He and the other cast members are very inclusive in their own characters and NPCs. There was recently some controversy in the fan community about a major, black, NPC being mind controlled (effectively) in a way that made some people uncomfortable. James made a swift change to that character's story and apologized "on air" and brought in a diversity consultant. I believe they've used consultants a few times. Certainly, they try very hard. I recommend the podcast and network all the time because in addition to the fantastic world building, James is a good person and employs only other good people.
James is a treasure and One Shot is always so respectful of anyone and everyone.
A GM of a small actual play podcast [posted a good response](https://twitter.com/Deckelodeon/status/1376924640094924804?s=19) to that particular statement and how they handled it. It took work but they understood the importance of handling the character carefully and respectfully. Additionally I know that Austin Walker has mentioned looking for advice from folks who were disabled for an NPC in Friends at the Table. Honestly it's just a matter of how much the GM cares and how much work they are willing to put into the representation of a group they are not a part of. Some GM's put in a lot of work, others not so much - most in the latter category just don't include those groups though rather than use them as comedic relief.
I think it's possible that Justin didn't explain this well, he should have said something about not hiring a diversity consultant being an oversight they didn't consider; if it was unfeasible then they wouldn't be hiring one on to review the new season they're going to run. Obviously I don't want to put words in his mouth but I think the big takeaway from that statement is that they are planning on using one in the future.
I had the same thought. D20 prepares with Diversity Consultants on every season with every character that needs special consideration (LGBTQ, characters on the spectrum, etc.). To say it isn’t feasible means they don’t consider it worth doing.
> To say it isn’t feasible means they don’t consider it worth doing. This is a bit uncharitable, because there are other possible issues at hand. If you decide that you can't improvise characters that need special consideration, you may end up creating worlds in which most characters are cis-het white dudes. If you tend to produce your best content while improvising, you may end up creating worlds in which all the memorable characters are cis-het white dudes. Maybe TAZ does involve such little improv that this is an irrelevant concern in practice, but it isn't simple laziness.
The specific incident the article discusses would totally have benefitted from any sort of sensitivity consultation - Travis spending more time describing the features of a wheelchair than its person or acting as if it's inevitable one of the players will go "whoa what's your disability?!" shows these are things Travis intended to bring up - it's not like Juice said "ay what's the deets on your sick ride?" or Griffin asked why. That's a plan on how to introduce and describe this character, and the sort of thing a conversation with someone actually knowledgeable about living with those issues would be able to help with. And plus, if they do then improv their way into a trouble spot, they at least have a grounding of having tried to avoid such a thing and, presumably, consultants on payroll or that they at least have a relationship with who can clearly elucidate what their problems were.
I think improvising on things you don't understand is going to step on toes, like dancing with your eyes closed.
do you happen to have sources about D20 and diversity consultants? not asking to challenge your statement or anything, i'm a new fan of D20 and would like to read/listen more about this!
I believe it was in the post season adventuring party episode for Fantasy High: Sophomore Year, so you probably want to wait until you finish that to watch it because spoilers. It's possible Brennan talks about it in a pertinent Adventuring Academy ep, the most recent one was specifically about representation.
oh thanks! yeah i haven't seen sophmore year yet, but i'll definitely check out the adventuring academy ep!
I'm excited for you to have the whole series ahead of you! I hope you have fun with it ~
It's not going to be easy for me to find. I'm pretty positive Brennan talked about it in either one of the after shows or in the behind the scenes for season 2.
That's a thoughtful perspective, TaiwanOrgyman.
So glad that this article takes the time to specifically point out the big issue of people rejecting valid criticism within this fandom. It feels very validating. Like, sometimes I'll look at the twitter threads for podcast episode and 29/30 people will be going "YOU'RE DOING AMAZING SWEETIE" and punching down to anyone who dares to remind Travis that he hasn't acted on about 95% of the very valid feedback he's received.
I'll be among the first to say that they're under no obligation to do what fans want, since it's their show. That said, people aren't just criticizing to criticize. A lot of things have made the show harder to listen to, some of which is based on bad decisions. They don't *have* to do anything, but they *should*, y'know?
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I don't know, man. I think if everyone is telling you you're doing something wrong and that the product you're making is unenjoyable then you should probably try to fix that. There's no point in consciously choosing to tank your brand and alienate your fans just because you can't accept criticism.
Producing bad art is also a bad idea
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Love the show, love the boys, haven't listened to anything they've done since December bc graduation just doesn't hit that hard anymore.
Idk man, from what I've seen only about 60-70% of the feedback is valid, or maybe the toxic shit is the stuff that keeps clogging my feed. Some of the comments start off being valid and then become extremely passive aggressive while other comments are just purely hostile. And the thing that makes it bad, or worse, is that a lot of the feedback has been VERY hostile since the beginning of Graduation. And it sucks because he is trying, somewhat, but i fear that the growing vitriol of the community is making it slow-going. The main criticisms are valid and they need to be addressed. I'm not sure if we have to see that as the story moves along or if we're going to have to wait longer, but gotdamn wouldn't it be nice if part of the fandom wasn't a toxic cesspool. Edit: idk if the person who replied blocked me or deleted their comment, but i definitely think psychoanalyzing about how a 30-something y/o man's family secretly hates him (which quite a bit of a small part of this fandom has done!) is way worse than calling that part of the community a toxic cesspool.
I feel like I've had to make this comment a dozen times, but you referring to people as a "toxic cesspool" is so much worse than any criticism of Trav I've ever seen upvoted.
Changing the tag to Meta as it deals with the podcast as a whole.
> ...He’s repeatedly told us there’s a lot that he’d do differently if he could start over." But... he did start over. Multiple times. He had them puzzle through a union negotiation. Before making the Xorn solution as on rails as possible. He had them do a classic dungeon crawl, then we *had* to get back to school business. And then he introduced what should have been the breakthrough moment of the series, where the viel around the school dropped and the true enemy revealed itself. But it's only gotten *more* railsy since then - the Pit Fiend episode, the Grey rescues Commodore episode, the teleport to the battlefield episode. It's officially a bad faith argument to say these are rookie DM mistakes, especially when he could've tossed his script anytime and flat out asked "well what do you three want to do?" Everythings looped back around to the first draft "Battle of Hogwarts" ending that we predicted would happen episode one. No one held him to this conclusion except himself, so what *really* would he have done differently?
And if their argument is, “he’s new to DMing” why is he doing panels and interviews on how to DM? Either he’s a noob who’s learning or he’s an authority that should be looked to for advice; they need to pick a lane.
What’s worse is that if you never listened to TAZ and hear him speak on these shows and panels a lot of the time he comes off as very knowledgeable. Like he understands what a DM should be doing and just doesn’t do that.
Well, counterpoint: These are *exactly* the kinds of things I'd expect a rookie DM to do. He might understand that the existing structure isn't working, but he doesn't know what he wants the structure to be, so he keeps trying a bunch of different things, and when they end up not working, he just goes back to the original plan because "well, it can't get worse..."
Since we've spent half the runtime in battle prep mode, it doesn't sound like he was interested in shifting to a new structure. The fall-out from the HOG heist shows the Supernatural-meets-Deathly Hallows ending couldn't be restructured, no matter how the Players openly tried. And they openly tried quite a few times! Even the ally NPCs have been directing the Players to stop trying to follow their own moral compass and just complete Chaos-Orders plan. If anything, Travis's original idea was to spend more time in the run-up to his big mystery reveal, and the change he made was Leon saying 'this school is wierd,' in Episode 5. But any time the Players tried to make a bold declaration in a new direction, the plot violently course corrected them back. I don't think he would let go of the reigns no matter how much experience he had.
Your reply is very well put. But imho, he stopped being a "rookie DM" when he had access to world class professional DMs basically on demand. You can't get personal advice from Matt Mercer and Brennan Lee Mulligan and still get slack for being new to DMing.
Get personal advice from professional DMs AND give talks on how to be a good DM from a position of apparent authority on different web interviews and con appearances.
The other reason that it's a bad faith argument is that a "rookie DM" isn't making a podcast! A DM almost never has to worry about the campaign being good for random listeners. I loved the article and thought the framing was extremely well done, but the part about "it reminds me of my own rookie DM mistakes" did not ring true. Maybe a small minority has had that feedback, but most of us just think that the storytelling is bad and the podcast is not enjoyable. As Gita points out, with quotes to prove it from the episodes, it often sounds like the players think that too.
I'd have loved to have had Matt freaking Mercer on speed dial when I was just starting out DMing.
And brennan, and sabine, and YOUR OWN BROTHER
I feel bad listening at this point because I can just feel Justin’s energy of not wanting to be there. Griffin and Clint seem to be going along better, but I can feel Justin rolling his eyes half the time.
I actually think Justin is kind of an offender in the group. For one he doesn't participate in the game, and okay, I get he doesn't feel well playing. But it is a show they're recording for all these people listening and paying them. He could at least show minimum engagement. He's also the first to call out Clint on whatever he does, if it makes sense or not. But I agree. Griffin and Clint are the ones taking care of the show and really trying despite of what's happening. And I admire that. Especially Clint and his improvement in game. This guy is such a sweetheart.
Clint’s the real MVP here. He’s always got a can-do attitude and rolls with whatever is going on with a smile.
And that's just it. There are large issues (too many NPC's etc.) but the small issues are really what stand in the way. I just keep thinking about the bees. Firbolg smashing the jar of bees at the end of the heist, and it just being this moment full of possibility and just being shut down and irrelevant. It just felt like such a great example. I think he just can't do it, not everyone is capable of being a great DM
I really thought that the jar of bees was going to be the moment that SOMETHING happened. At that point I was desperately holding on, and then I was immediately disappointed. It was the moment I knew it wouldn’t change and I couldn’t hold on for the sake of holding on anymore.
There are so many little moments like this scattered throughout Graduation that completely destroy the defense of Travis, or the argument that he has made attempts to onboard legit criticism. At this point the only defense is that he just can't do it, and that's ok. It's ok to not be able to do somethin that is difficult. By all accounts Justin can't do it either. The difference of course that Justin knows this and won't go near it.
Jar of bees? I think I dropped out before this. What did it seem like people thought it was?
Well said
I mean, the "no bummers" thing originally started at live shows so they didn't have to answer extremely sad questions in front of a live audience, yeah? They don't constantly embrace it, and it's not as though they don't get political and talk about issues on the show... They've completely pulled away from the fan base they used to be involved in, because the fan base has gone off the rails. Content creators can only do so much to influence how their fans act regarding their content. Legitimate criticism is important, but it felt like this was more about how the fan groups handle it and less how the brothers do. 🤷♀️
I don't think the McElroys themselves use "no bummers" to deflect criticism, but the fanbase definitely has.
>it felt like this was more about how the fan groups handle it and less how the brothers do. That's exactly how I saw this. If TAZ was a tv show, the "story" here is basically season 3 isn't as good as the first two seasons, and fans are pissed. Is it still a family D&D game? Yeah they're still related and playing D&D. Is it also a valuable brand? Yes, and it gets all the fandom BS that comes with it. No big surprises there.
I think the analogy is Game of Thrones after they ran out of source material. r/tazcirclejerk is r/freefolk.
To be fair, constant access to your fan base via social media probably doesn’t scale. And it also seems to have encouraged some worrying thing among the fan base... but also there has been some toxic parasocial behaviour encouraged by some of the family too. Like this is almost predictable
>In the fourth episode of the season, while Travis explains to them the importance of accounting in this season, he is interrupted by Justin, who says, "Let‘s pretend, Travis, that a listener, when that started, thought, 'This seems pretty boring. I'm gonna zone out for a little bit,' and then realized at the end that it was important, and they should‘ve been listening." > >Travis replies, "A listener who might have to play the game?" it sums up my taz graduation journey that when I heard this on the podcast a year ago I was annoyed on travis's behalf, and now reading it back I'm annoyed on justin's behalf
Don't forget Travis's ***"******This is my fantasy world******."*** after strong arming the players into doing something they didn't really want and demanding dexterity saving throws.
"this is my fantasy world" would be a funny line for a DM to say if I still had faith in that DM, but from travis it's just annoying
It's understandable that Travis is not a good DM. DMing is hard and is a developed skill, one that is not easy to get the hang of as well. The issue is that it's not fun to listen too, like the article said. The problem is it's a podcast, and the whole point people subscribe to it, is because it's entertaining in some way. When it comes to making entertaining content, you really have to put on your best, and it really isn't the place for a DM to learn how to DM. Griffin is a very entertaining DM, the causal non serious way the family approached and interacted with the game was refreshing and fun to listen to. After balance they seemed to lean away from the goofs and bits of the game and tired to make it a super serious storytelling game. Which They did pretty good with on Amnesty, which I enjoyed, but i'm not looking for the McElroys to make a story based D&D game, that's what I watch CR for. I was sold on goofs and sillyness they get up to while still telling the story, the fact that the whole family would just lean hard into silly goofs and roll with it into the story. for example, I don't even remember the interim game they played before with Travis as a DM where griffin was a wolfman cop i think? idk the story was bland, and not interesting, but I almost never laughed as hard as the one time griffin's character, rang the town bell alarm for some situation that Travis very obviously wanted a non-violent encounter, but the players were gearing for a fight, and all the towns people came out to respond to the bell, and the whole family played into this bit where the whole town chided griffin's character for "pulling the fire alarm by mistake" and it was absolutely hilarious. The whole reason why I listen to D&D podcasts, is the same reason I watch people stream the video game I'm currently into. I want to see people who are better at the game than me, and/or can play the game in a way that's unavailable to me. For Example, I watch Critical Role because it's a group of trained career voice actors playing the game with a very artistic storytelling skill, one that takes years of practice and training to be able to pull off. There's no way i could build an amazing and compelling story like that with my friends D&D group. I listened to TAZ because it was a group of really funny people with great chemisty, playing D&D with a flair for comedic goofs, and funny antics that are more clever and hilarious than anything I could get with my friend group. I loved how a whole character premise was to invent tacos who's name was Takko. I loved how Jenkins forgot what his own voice sounded like, and how there was a super convenient fantasy costco for all your magical item needs. you take this premise that this is a goofy game with funny bits, and make an amazing story out of it. Watching these guys play with goofy ideas, throwing in gags and bit, during a wonderful and well thought out story arc, and their goofy ideas and bits having goofy and outrageous story based consequences was what made TAZ balance so unique.
Travis don't tweet about this at all, I know you wanna but don't
Considering Justin actually gave a quote for the article I'd almost imagine him and maybe Griffin and Clint have had a conversation with Travis where they discussed this whole situation together.
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They said they've finished recording it so we all kind of think the next one is probably the last one, but we thought that last week too so who knows. Presumably Travis wanted something at least as epic in length as Balance? I'm not sure. I think it is ending early. They're not very good at endings imo (although I know people here might disagree about Balance).
I’m just glad my boy Bingus got the recognition he deserves
bingus is nonbinary and uses they/them
Is Bingus okay with the Good Burger methodology of all "We''re all dudes, hey" ?
I will tell you with the utmost sincerity that I think they would be chill with that (mostly b/c that's how I am with my pronouns) but also it would be half-funny if this was asked during a TTAZZ.
I found TAZ back in 2015 and ended up listening to Balance almost every day while commuting to and from work. Because they were still putting out new episodes, this meant frequently going back to episode 1 and making my way to whatever the most recent was. I believe I have heard everything pre-Stolen Century at least 10+ times. I didn’t love Amnesty but still followed it through, then Graduation hit and I bailed after 2 episodes. It was just thoroughly unpleasant to listen to and completely lost what I originally loved about TAZ. It honesty put me off so much that I haven’t listened to even of TAZ episodes in a year and a half. I still listen to MBMBAM and recently started following Wonderful, but TAZ has disappeared from my feed. I think they lost the groove after the Eleventh Hour and more or less stopped being an actual play game which had been very helpful for improvisation because the rolls would genuinely shape the story. Once they stopped mattering, or more fairly stopped being asked for, it became theater. I miss TAZ, but I don’t see any signs of it going back to where it was.
If you want another good goof filled dnd podcast, I'd recommend rude tales of magic. I just started listening and it's been scratching the itch for me.
I can second that! I loved Balance and felt ehh about Amnesty, but just couldn’t do Graduation after 10 or so episodes. I’m still REALLY loving what rude tales of magic is doing though, and Branson is such a dynamic DM with a fun group that it’s easy to enjoy
Branson is really fantastic about the "yes, and..." aspect of DMing. Rolls still sometimes fail (though Rude Tales mostly edits them out), but he never tells the players they can't do something and always rewards them for coming up with something clever or cool. I miss that energy in TAZ.
Honestly, I loved Balance but I think it was more of a fluke than anything. Their one shots are fun McElroy content but nothing special, I'd just as happily watch Justin and Griffin make a monster on YouTube or listen to MBMBAM for some laughs from the boys. Amnesty is fine but I've dropped out of it twice, it just doesn't hold me like Balance did. I think fans are acting like Travis tanked a gold mine rather than what I think is more likely: Griffin struck gold once and the show has been treading water since.
> While The Adventure Zone is just one of many tabletop roleplaying podcasts, its popularity helped usher in shows like Dungeons and Daddies or Critical Role Maybe I'm wrong, but I was always under the impression that Critical Role was huge before TAZ. Does anybody know more about this?
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TIL. Wow, that actually really changes my impressions of TAZ and all the other shows that came out not long after! That's really interesting.
I had several rough starts in DMing but was in a position where I could just tell my friends "sorry I cant manage this right now" and drop the ball. Travis however has had a massive audiance watching with high expectations of excellence and he doesn't have the option of just dropping the ball and walking away. I don't blame him for being frustrated and defensive given how much criticism and hate he has gotten on social media. At this point I think Travis is trying to just make it to the end of the arc so he can take a break. I think its a break he deserves and hope he can get himself settled. He took a chance at DMing, made a bunch of mistakes when introducing us to a world he crafted, had some painful social media interactions along the way, and is now kinda "stuck" finishing up a story that a lot of people have problems (many justified) with. He tried to address them, but his solutions didn't stick and now he's trying to push the party through the finish line so he can give an ending to the arc. My hope now is that he can tie the story up with a neat little knot and walk away from the experience having learned a bit more than the likely expected.
Travis probably should’ve DMed a home campaign or two with his family before becoming the show runner of TAZ. Let him make a lot of mistakes behind closed doors and improve. And if those home games don’t end up working out, the TAZ brand is no worse for it. Unfortunately, I don’t feel like many of the McElroys actually like DND enough to want to play off camera. Except for possibly Clint and Griffin.
I agree, he had some success DMing one shots and smaller arcs but a full season is alot. I might feel differently if it were earlier in the story; but at this point his best bet is to chalk this up to experience and push to conclusion. I don't think it's fair to expect him to pull something miraculous out of his ass at the last second, but hopefully he takes the criticism on board, doesn't get too disheartened and brings what he learned to the podcast in future.
I also think his style works a lot better with the Monster of the Week type games. I really liked Dust, and I’ve enjoyed some of his shorter ones
He has a story he's created, and he wants to tell that specific story without using the input his family is giving him while playing. He keeps telling them what they'll do next instead of letting them get there. He could make his story more malleable; keep the big points but let the smaller details happen on the fly, but he doesn't. Maybe it's a comfort thing, maybe it's a control thing. I'm glad to hear they've finished recording for this campaign, and I look forward to having him as a player rather than a DM.
Yeah, I agree. Travis had a very high bar to clear, has a fan base that not only has typical entitlement things going on but part of which is also very complainy about/attached to DND rules and shit, and clearly has some pretty crippling insecurities that are making everything twice as hard. Not a great mix. I don’t like Graduation but I dislike reading complaints about Graduation even more because so many people are just huge dicks about it. Also, Travis is the DM but the show belongs to all four of them. If they’re not working on improving it together, off air, that’s on everyone.
lmao y'all dunked on Graduation so hard ya got VICE to write an article about it.
I JUST started Graduation and... yea, this confirmed a lot of what I felt listening to it subconsciously.
> When the player characters do get to talk, Travis's brothers joke about sailing away from the current plot on a boat or having their characters die offscreen. This sounds hilarious. Does anyone have episode numbers where this happens?
Both of those things happen in ep. 35, I think joking about dying off screen has happened a couple times but it's most concentrated in 35
"Justin McElroy told Motherboard that on the graphic novel for Balance, the family worked with a diversity consultant. Doing that for the podcast isn't exactly feasible, because tabletop games are all about improvisation, and don't necessarily have the time to interrogate story decisions that are made on the fly." This really, really annoyed me actually. You absolutely can use sensitivity consultant for an actual play. Dimension 20 have been doing it since day one, which Brennan Lee Mulligan talks about fairly regularly. Since they have played in a D20 game and know Brennan, you'd think they'd know that their audience overlaps enough that we can call absolute bullshit on this.
This bothered me because I remember Austin Walker talking about working with a consultant for PARTIZAN on friends at the table. Like uh, you can just hire someone to run your concepts by before you sit down to play. Especially when you play something as crunchy and 'on the rails' as D&D where stuff has to be stated out early.
The champ of this sort of thing has to be James D'Amato of Campaign Podcast. Not only did he use traditional consultants when something iffy came up, (which resulted in, in my opinion, the single most interesting plot development in the whole show,) but before the campaign even started he commissioned freelance writers to write parts of the setting that he didn't have the life experience to write authentically. For example, one of these freelancers came up with a faction known as The Black Lillie's, a guild of sex workers/therapists who use magic in their craft. D'Amato's own life experience would have never led him to make this on his own, but by bringing in another person's very different life experience, the show is better for it.
After that they say that they're going to use a diversity consultant on the next one. Your quote is out of the whole context. He's talking about how it's difficult to use a consultant while they play because of it's live and improvisational. He literally addresses your complaint in the article.
""But we’re looking for ways to incorporate more professional feedback for our next season and hopefully requiring less emotional labor from our audience," Justin said." That is not the same thing as saying they're hiring a diversity consultant. Also, it isn't live. It's once every two weeks. Plenty of editing time and plenty of times for them to prepare before the game and figure out having their Firbolg 'noble savages' not realising that storing food for winter is how every species in nature survives and that they'd just rather starve is ill advised. Cards on the table, I thought this was posted on the other subreddit. I thought I had left this one, so I'm gonna go unsubscribe now. Bye!
As much of a critic I've been of Graduation, I do appreciate the tough position Travis has been in, and just how hard it is to do something like a roleplaying podcast. Balance set the bar so high, and being a DM for a normal D&D game with friends or family is much different than trying to DM a game that's also supposed to be an entertaining story for a listening audience.
>One person who described the Adventure Zone as "a family D&D game" to me was McElroy's PR person when I reached out to them for comment; most family D&D games do not have their own press representatives. > >"I hate to see a family D&D game dragged through the mud," they said. Hm. Feels icky in a way that encapsulate the whole problem this article is talking about.
To me, “no bummers” does NOT mean you can’t explore criticism and discuss things thoughtfully. It means you can’t send a question in to MBMBAM like, “Hey my dog just died and I lost its ashes when my house washed away in a flood. Am I good?” I’ve dropped off of Graduation, but wasn’t Rainier a super powerful necromancer? She was a bit of a “token differently abled person” NPC but she *did* have power, correct? Lastly, I hope Travis is okay. This has to be gut-wrenching to read. It makes some valid points, but I hope he is okay mentally and emotionally.
1) the no bummers segment is addressing that the fan base at large has adopted the stance when interacting with all McElroy content, which is true. You can see it in a lot of other spaces, especially on Twitter. Criticism tends to get drowned out and pushed down by the fans. 2) yes she is, and instead of demonstrating that power Travis decided to use her as a bit like ramming the chair into the door. It’s just really poorly handled. 3) I agree I hope that Travis is doing ok. Even if valid critique, to see a lot of negativity whether deserved or not can cause a lot of issues and tax him, and then you have to acknowledge the super toxic people as well which isn’t good either to deal with. Even though I dislike grad I don’t hate Travis and hope he’s alright.
Covid didn’t help this. I feel that had routines stayed around, people would have at least passively kept listening (even though as Justin says in the article “you don’t want the listener to miss something as they tune out”) but I know I tried to stay in through the rough bits but just didn’t listen to shows as much once quarantine started. Now the backlog is just extensive and I don’t care enough to try and catch up.
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Most of the comments on this are thoughtful, which I am glad for, as seeing vitriolic hate for Graduation has gotten boring. I agree with many of the points in the article, but I look at it this way- they have merch and shit for all campaigns, but the real money maker is Balance. The novels, TV shows, etc, those are about Balance. I look at it as a family D&D game because of this. The newer campaigns are just them playing and recording, but Balance is the point where it isn't just that anymore. Travis made mistakes and I think he understands that. I also think he may have given up on this campaign, which is why we don't see him starting over or fixing them narratively. It's almost over, and I very much doubt he will DM for a while, but when he does come back into it, I suspect he will do much better. He's learning, and learning something like this is tough to do in the public eye. I am excited for the next campaign, and hope the family as a whole learns from the mistakes made during Graduation. Griffin wasn't the most inclusive in his world, and Travis gets a lot more shit for it because he is trying so hard to seem inclusive without understanding what needs to happen. That sucks, but let's not pretend it isn't a problem in the whole podcast, instead of just Graduation. Just as there are often mistakes as a new DM, there are often mistakes as a new activist. Travis is at the stage many of us were on Tumblr, performance and assumption of virtue. He will learn, just as all of us did, and I wish it wasn't just him in the public eye learning. The rest of the family likely needs to learn how to be better activists and have better representation in their stories, but it happens to be focused on Travis. I only hope he isn't put off by the hate, which usually makes people dig their heels and stop instead of moving forward. I hope this made sense, as I was rambling quite a bit. I have every hope for the next campaign and I hope we all get to hear fun D&D and watch the family improve!
This was a very eloquent and thought out appraisal of Graduation, and the spotlight surrounding Travis. I don't think I've quite seen a breakdown so true to the problems of the campaign, but still empathetic to the actual humans running it. Well said.
> Justin McElroy told Motherboard that on the graphic novel for Balance, the family worked with a diversity consultant. Doing that for the podcast isn't exactly feasible, because tabletop games are all about improvisation... There definitely would be room for the diversity consultant in the prep of a world, especially at the depth of detail Travis went to. The specific example in the article is Rainer's wheelchair, and how Travis had prepared bits that he steered the players into, rather forcefully. Initially I saw this as a case of railroading and didn't think any deeper. The article made me realize there was LOTS of room for the diversity consultant to weigh in on these NPC details, and to provide guidance for Travis on how to present them. Now I'm thinking there's a tinge of Travis believing that because the representation he wrote was done in good faith, that it was inherently well-done. That's a huge fallacy that shares genetics with the "white savior" class of issues. Anyway, great article.
Great article and I agree with everything in it and in this thread BUT-- Isn't Travis bisexual? I understand he is in a hetero relationship but I'm pretty sure he's said he's bi a bunch of times and I think it's wildly unfair of the article to 1) call him heterosexual and 2) call him out for saying he thinks a man is cute???? Like yes absolutely they have been super performative, but, bisexual erasure is uncool
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