The Adventure Zone - The The Adventure Zone Zone: Amnesty Wrap-Up!

Episode Date: October 24, 2019

We’re answering some questions about The Adventure Zone: Amnesty in this bonus episode, and talking very, very briefly about our next season! It’s called Graduation, and it launches next week! Happy MaxFunDrive! Right now is the best time to start a membership to support your favorite shows. Learn more and join at https://maximumfun.org/jointaz

Hi, it's us. The four of us, the Macroy Boys. The four of horsemen of comedy. I wasn't, that sounds, ooh, that's scary. That makes it sound like we're here to tell jokes and maybe kill you. So this is another D, the Adventure Zone zone. We're going to talk about amnesty and answer some of your questions. There were a couple, well, there were a few things that left you with the old head scratchants.

Can we say our names? Because I want to call dibs on pestilence. Oh, okay. Well, I'm torn between war and death. Okay, then I'm death. I'm going to be famine. Oh, great. I get famine.

Yeah, I get famine. Yeah, you're famine. Wonderful. We're also going to talk about graduation, correct? Yes, which is now announced and is out there. Yes. Let me give you guys a real softball. What I've done differently here, by the way, everyone, I went through your questions,

and there were a lot of common themes. So we have some specifically. specific questions, but mostly we've got some like general discussion topics. So Ducks real name, Justin. Would you like to speak on that? Because that went over some of our listeners' heads and they were confused as to why he hit it. This is your old Uncle Justin here, ready to tell you that Wayne Newton is known as Mr.

Entertainment. He's kind of a Las Vegas staple. If you've ever seen Ferris Bueller's Day Off, which fuck, you haven't because you're eight. Again, I forgot. Sorry. I don't know if- I don't know of dragging our listeners. is the best thing. Not dragging them.

Do you think there's infinite stuff that they know about that I don't? That's fair. Infinite. It's not a drag. It's just stating facts is a drag on me. Ferris Bueller is Justin's TikTok. Like the Kesha song?

Oh, geez. Oh, God. Oh, boy. Well, he was also in National Ampoon Vegas Vacation. Oh, yeah, that's seminal classic film for kids. I love all the vines. Remember all the VV v vines? They call them triple V's as Vegas vacation vines.

Big hat. Big hat. Anyway, Wayne Newton is a sort of a little bit cheesy Vegas presence. And I thought, I like the idea that Wayne Newton, his mom was a big Wayne Newton fan. And she named him after Wayne Newton, which is, she thought was fucking radical, which is why she always hated Duck, is because she was such a big Wayne Newton fan. Now, of course, when Duck was growing up, Wayne Newton was a bit more of a presence than he is right now. So he, you know, he got tired of being teased.

And he struck on by Duck. That is the incredible true story. There you go. Aren't you glad they, she wasn't a fan of Inglebert Humperdink? That would have been even wild. That would have been a rad name, actually. Yeah. Thank you for choosing a.

by several decades more outdated reference than mine dad i do appreciate you're welcome buddy uh Griffin yeah what is what what what was going on there with Leo uh and uh Endred at the end there is Leo the new moth man yeah I I I uh for the endings like I really I had like ideas I had beats I had basically for balance I did like offers I think is what I called them and they just happened to align very well with like what you all saw your character arcs post-adventure being. The Mothman thing, like, I, I thought, you know, the law that was kind of keeping people from staying in Sylvain, like, that was keeping the Silvans from coming home, you know, had been effectively lifted

because you'd restored the heart of the planet and everything was all good. And so, you know, maybe Indrid would want to go home and go home. and luckily he would be leaving behind like a group of mystic seer superheroes that could easily take up the charge for him. Justin's choices for like Duck and his ending like just straight up didn't align. And I think we may have even taken a pass at the ending

where we tried to make it align it. It just like did not work. And so I was like, ah, fuck it. Like Leo is still at home. And yeah, he has psychic visions and probably not much else to do. Dr. Drake is, you know, still busy at the Greenbank telescope and doing all that stuff.

So, yeah, Leo's the new Mothman. Like many, many, many, many things in this campaign, it was like something I had way deep in the background that just like didn't really pan out or get time to explore very much. Now, Griffin, you mentioned it briefly in there, but the Sylvan's being exiled. Right. I always thought that that was like they had, I don't know, whether by accident or something had like crossed over and just weren't. allowed to come back or was there were they being punished for something um again like this is a thing

i think we tried to explore the first time you all like as a group went to sylvain and that episode probably more than any is the one that we had to like doctor because uh it was just so wildly lore heavy and like way too dense and was setting like a really really bad tone for the rest of the campaign But yeah, basically, like, the big thing that was happening in the world then was this limiting of how much of this, like, life-sustaining power people were allowed to have and people were allowed to take. And so there was a, you know, a lot of Jean Valjean-style stuff going on where people were trying to, you know, siphon off too much light. And if you did that, they would kick you out because exiling people essentially just means there's more to go around for everybody else. This was like some of like Woodbridge business that we again like didn't really get to of you know. Because he sucked, right?

Yeah, he sucked. But he was he was also charged with like maintaining the, uh, the survival of his entire like civilization. And that meant like these sort of draconian measures. And so, yeah, everybody who was exiled from Sylvain either did like break a law established to maintain the existence of their people. Or, yeah, just like crossed over and ran away and left. And once you do that, you are not allowed to come, you're not allowed to come back home because their relationship with, you know, things living on Earth is extremely and understandably tenuous. Now, I have a, this is a question for all of us. People really were interested to hear our thoughts on like the differences between the story as it kind of played out and the characters, the difference between balance and amnesty.

I will say just story-wise, one of the things that I have kind of compared it to a couple times now is that I felt like balance was much more of a, and this isn't like a quality judgment so much as it is a structure judgment, an epic story where it's like building to a big thing and it's, you know, the whole thing is like kind of one big arc, right, of story where Amnesty is much more episodic, where you have a build, season over season, but it is more focusing on the, like, if you look at the five, like the five sections of seasons, right? You can see a very clear build season over season and then starting back at the beginning, build again. And so it was a kind of different way to take it, where as I was playing, I wasn't focused on like, where is this going? You know, like, I was more just thinking of, like the task in front of us and solving for that, right? And trying to catch things as they went on. And so kind of the same way it kind of played out with Aubrey,

where I wasn't trying, with Magnus, I felt like I was always trying to get to like, yeah, but who is he really? Where is he going to end up? What's his deal? And with Aubrey, like, I was just being, like, just doing it, just doing the thing. And then when something about her would come out, like Griffin would ask a question or, you know,

Duck or Ned or Thacker would have a scene with her and I would be surprised to find out like some development about her because I just wasn't thinking like long game as much with her as I was with Magnus. Hey real quick, we're probably gonna do spoilers for amnesty. I don't think we've said that at this point, but yeah.

So many, this is the, be careful. Yeah, come on, people. Come on now. I think a big difference for me was the fact that because it was in a less, less fantastical setting than balance. It always felt like the stakes were a little higher.

I mean, I know big things, dramatic things happened in balance, but I think because Kepler was, you know, a small town and because things were, you know, a lot more intimate and set in the one place. For me anyway, it kind of felt like, you know, when stuff happened to the characters, you know, there wasn't going to be any magic.

spell that brought them back to life. Although we did do that a couple of times. But it always felt like the stakes were a little bit higher for me and made it a little bit more scary, to be honest with you. Yeah, role playing with actual laws and a law enforcement agency that enforces laws is interesting. Yeah. Yeah, it's tough.

I mean, that was, I came into it with a, I think my mistake with, um, with amnesty, and I think it's okay to talk about this stuff. Yeah. I think my mistake with amnesty was like, I tried, I went in, okay, you ever break up with somebody and then it's like a long-term relationship

and then the next relationship you get into, you immediately want it to be the level of, like, intimacy that you had in the last relationship, right? Yeah. It's the best metaphor I can think of to, like, Taco is so fully realized, by the end of balance that like, I, like, kind of jumped ahead to that with Duck

and, like, figured out too much stuff for him. And I think because of that, like, I didn't really have his, the essence of who he was as a person at the beginning. Yeah, I, I just, yeah, the same as we went. We discovered stuff as we went, like the inability to lie and stuff like that. Did that motivate, by the way?

That was one of my favorite qualities of duck, by the way. It was so fun and also at the same time, like, told you so much about him. That was such a fun character. The main thing that I was trying to do with Duck, and I can also admit this now, is it is so fucking hard to roleplay a wizard, especially specifically in Dungeons and Dragons, because if you're in a narrative podcast, like, there's this constant pressure to, like, do cool shit and find, like, the cool spell that's going to turn everything on its ear. And like, Duck could, Duck had two moves, stab and not lie. And that's like the two things, actions that he could take.

And that made a lot more digestible, I think, for me. Was that a factor in you wanting to make him mundane again? No. I mean, like, mundane was a real challenge. Because, like, that for me was like, how can we make this compelling at all? And it's really something that, like, Griffin and I struggled with, like, can this even be entertaining. Because like, I don't, I don't know. He's like basically not even a superhero at that point. Like, he's just like a regular Joe. That's like a cool narrative thing, but like,

it ain't easy to tell a story that way. But I'm happy with how it came out. It was so interesting. I went through kind of the opposite thing. Like, it's so funny to hear you say that, which is a lot how I felt as Magnus for a while in balance. And then I was so excited to play a spell slinger, but because we played in this more like grounded world, I really felt that it was important to justify her being able to do stuff. I like, and so I always tried to time it with like, you know, leveling up rather than just like, yeah, now she can shoot lightning because, or more just looking at the use magic. I didn't want to be like, yeah, she's gonna make a portal, a thing she's never done in her

entire life and has not, like, so that was, it became more of a narrative. thing to like figure out how to make that work. Yeah. And and I think, I don't think Justin was the only one who fell a little bit into like the rebound kind of thing. We all did. Like we, that was the, that was the, and again, like, we're not dragging our own shit, but like, that was the hubris. I think we all displayed when we started in on amnesty proper. Yeah.

Was this idea of just like, well, we knew what made balance good there at the end. Let's just hit those dramatic beats right away. and then it was like, that ain't how that ain't how storytelling works is probably, one of the one of the other questions is what did you learn? And like, that's probably number one. It's like, you can't just jump into the third act of a story.

I came in so hot with Aubrey. Oh, yeah. This is what she sounds like. And she has, like, has this loss. And she's this and this and this. And like then after playing it for like four episodes, those like, oh, no, it's not that. Like, that was one of the best notes that,

like, we got from our audience with people were like, we're not crazy about the voice. And I was like, okay, cool. And then it just basically became like my voice pitched up, like, one quarter of an octave. And that was like all it began. And I think from that point forward, I started playing her a lot more like myself and seeing, like, the impulse control, the ADD and everything. And originally, I saw her as being way more kind of chaotic and like, like, whoops,

I keep making mistakes with my magic and destroying stuff. But then it was like, no, I think she might be more grounded than that and more realistic than that. And that, like, I think that was kind of the difference is when we started balance, we were like adding stuff to the characters. Right. And then with Amnesty, I think we had to chip away stuff that didn't work to find our characters. From a story, we've talked about characters from a story perspective, and I'll go quick because we've put on this question for a long time. doing the story for amnesty was actually much, much harder than it was for balance, despite the fact the balance was like this grand epic campaign,

partially because like that grand epic campaign, I could make each like chunk of it be whatever the fuck. Like that world and the campaign and the tone that we set for it kind of allowed it to be this infinite toy box where if I wanted to do an arc that is like a Wild West time loop, like I don't actually have to bend over backwards trying to justify it. The justification is there's some wild magic in this world, man. know, that's why we got to stop it. In Amnesty, like, it was a lot harder being inside the confines of, I know what the theme and tone of this is going to be. Like, I want to tell a story

about West Virginia, by which I mean, like, not necessarily, I want to tell a story that is just full-blown rural Appalachia setting, you know, et cetera, but rather like, I want to tell a story about the folks who benefit from, you know, artificial sort of manufactured conflict between people, which is like the story of West Virginia in a nutshell. And so, like, that was super, like, helpful in a way because it meant, like, I had a direction for it starting out, but it also meant that, like, I had to stick with that no matter what. And so, like, I don't know, it was a lot more, despite the fact that it did end with a, you know,

cataclysmic world saving event. Like, staying within the confines of that was like super tricky, but I think it ended up with a story that is like wildly, tonally different from balance. Speaking of tonally different, let's talk about Ned's death and Thacker becoming a PC. So one, people wanted us to talk about Ned's death. But then there were lots of questions about like, was this always the plan for Thacker? Was he always like a backup player? What was going to happen with him if he hadn't become a player?

So first, Dad and Griffin, like, how did we come to killing Ned Shikane? I felt like it was, I felt like Ned's story had come to an end. I felt like the things that led up to the, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, passing, I think just really followed a good pattern. I, I, I, I, I, I, I didn't necessarily want Ned to go because I love, playing Ned. But it just seemed like his story with Aubrey and the things that developed for him that, you know, for him to finally be a hero and save somebody's life in doing that.

I just, I felt like it was the time for him to go. like there's actually systems in Monster of the Week for retiring a character so like if that really was the drive like dad could have also just said like and then Ned runs away like he could have just done what Aubrey said that art could have ended with Ned just fucking running away and then dad rolls a new character like that is actually one of the advancement level up moves that you can take as you can retire so like that wasn't necessarily like dad's desire dad's like thinking about Ned's uh ending having naturally arrived like wasn't necessarily like the reason why he died. That entire arc was, in the same way that that was like our suffering game, right, for amnesty. Because in a lot of ways, it was like, I cannot really endanger these folks in the traditional method because they are, you know, superheroes to a certain extent. Maybe less duck, who was, you know, specifically a mundane. But, and so the thing that I came up with was like, this is the final escalation of,

reconciliation's like effort to get this war going between sylvain and earth and so they sent over this this shapeshifter uh what did i call it i had it in my notes every monster had a name and they were very simple like the the beast the water the calamity the countenance is what i called this one although that never really came up and so the whole thing with this arc is it was building to a to an inflection point like it was building to a climactic moment everything that happened in that arc was building to this moment in front of the archway and you all had plenty of chances to stop it or disrupt it or whatever and you did to an extent like some of the things you did like at that final confrontation you uh i think you made some of the hornets go away like it could have been

extremely extremely bad and it was really bad because there were also some terrible roles there but basically like it was all building up to this point where something terrible was going to happen because like that was the way that this hunt had gone. You had done virtually nothing to slow this things like plans or whatever. I think that it's important to note here that like this is where, and we've talked about this, I think in every to Taz's, this is a distinction between playing an RPG with your friends

and playing an RPG as a method of storytelling, right? Like Griffin is, or any DM or GM is not, going to unilaterally decide to kill one of our other creations. We are telling this story collaboratively, right? There's moment to moment stuff that they will discover organically, like, as they're playing. Right. And some big

stuff has happened that way. I mean, like some gigantic stuff has happened that way. But if Griffin, or again, if whoever is going to take a player off the table, it is going to, like, be a discussion beforehand. But maybe not like how

exactly that happens or whatever, But like it will be something they sort of talk about beforehand because we're telling a story together and that's really that starts to get a little bit like take my ball and go home Right. Okay, fine. Well, your guy's dead. So anyway, get a new guy. And I think that we all kind of had a sense that we wanted that to happen to someone at some point in this arc just to prove that we like to keep the stakes. Right? Like right like well and also but like for us as a show like I want I want I want to prove that we like to keep the stakes. Right. Like. Well, and also but like for us as a show like I want I want. want people to know when they're listening what we are capable of. And like, and it's murder. And it's murder. What it is is character murder.

No, I mean, like, I want people to understand this. I want there to feel stakes, right? Yeah. I don't want to just be like the good friends club having adventures. Like there have to be tension or else it's not gonna, you know, it's just not gonna land emotionally. Yeah. To that point, like if dad had gotten a full success on that one role where he jumps in front

of the, you know, he tries to tackle Danny to the ground, like, I don't know. How do I justify that he gets killed that I, like, fulfill dad's, like, way of thinking that his story has come to an end? I don't know, but he got to make success. So I gave him a hard fucking choice. That's the, like, that's the game. And that's the game.

Right. And that's the thing is that's why I think that narrative moment worked out so well, right? Because it wasn't like a complete failure where Griffin was like, well, you're dead. Right. And it wasn't a complete success that Griffin had to force. Like, I really felt like that was a big character moment where Ned got. offered the choice of like you have to choose between you or Danny and Ned sacrifices himself a thing he would not have done before we started amnesty and a thing which is actually fascinating

it's fascinating because he tried dad almost did that with Ned right at a point much earlier yes right dad dad yeah and and you actually were the as as i say it just about every you know con we go to or every interview just is the best at character police and acting police. Well, I'm being serious. It's kind of a backhanded compliment, but I will take... No, it's a forehanded compliment. The J-Man didn't get a lot of superlatives in the old Taz world,

so I will take best character police. You are. You are dedicated to staying true to your character, and there was a moment, was it at... It was in the hot springs, and Jake Coolice was trapped in it. and you were like, I dive heroically into the water to save him. Yeah. And so it was like, fucking really?

No, you wouldn't. No, you wouldn't. You wouldn't do that. And he was exactly right. And that really resonated with me for the rest of the time playing Ned. Yeah. Because, you know, Ned wasn't a hero. And we had to, he had to earn that journey.

He had to earn that title. And so, yeah. And so I also love that it was Danny's girl. or it was, it was Aubrey's girlfriend. You know what I mean? Like, would Ned have done that for some random stranger? Would he have done it if it wasn't, you know, to do something for, I don't know. But like.

And it had an impact. We got to crank. Okay, yes. About Facker. Yeah. I love that because the discussion that followed that was, well, okay, how do we bring Ned back to life? And it was like, oh, we shouldn't.

We can't. No, that would take away from all of it. Dad, why did you, I feel like Thacker actually came up very organically and... It was my idea. I thought it was my idea. Well, it was my idea. I'm checking slack. Okay, that is exactly what I'm talking about.

So why, why, why, what was it about Thacker that you decided to, uh, full disclosure? There was a moment where it was like, okay, they still have that like organic, organic printer bag that the countenance left behind. Could they use that to print a new body? Could they print a new net? talked about ghosts because we'd already established that with Dewey. Yeah. And there's ghost characters. We talked about the, there's like, you know, not undead, but like a monster character.

Right. Or a monster playbook. You could be a ghost in that. But then it was also a question of like, well, okay, if he doesn't play Ned, are we going to roll up a new character in the final arc of the show? Right. And then, you were really down to play fact. Like when the idea came up, you like jumped at it.

Yeah. I thought it just because there were a couple of times in previous stories where I kept trying to guide the story back to Thacker because it just felt like there was this great resource somebody who had been to the other side who had seen things from the bad guy's viewpoint if you wanted to and we basically had him in a in a cage in the basement right so narrative cave yeah right so that storyline was there and Griffin you can answer this better than me but I just always felt that Thacker was going to re-enter the storyline, again, maybe just joining as an NPC, you know, to guide them, you know, wherever they were going to go. But it just seemed like we had this resource that that was there that we needed to use. Also, fully, I have this in my mind the entire time. You could have done that at the very beginning. I think I had, I was paying attention every time that, like, Aubrey was in the room if Aubrey had, like, touched Thacker. the like 12 influence would have like yeah so that literally that literally could have

happened at any point so who I see I think that that was the the big development in the conversation about it was when we were talking about that kind of recap big transition episode where I think we were talking about you know using big magic and the idea of bringing someone back and then I think we hit on the idea of using big magic to cure Thacker which is like a thing Aubrey had been talking about doing for a while. Right. And then that being like the perfect opportunity to introduce Thacker as a player character. Once again, it was, I thought, an amazing, like, narrative opportunity that kind of came

up pretty organically. Speaking Griffin, Aubrey as Sylvain, was that something that you had kind of in mind from the beginning? Fuck no. No. And a lot of people asked me, like, was I surprised by it? And the answer is, in many ways, yes. Yeah.

When, yeah, after, you know, after Janelle says that in the elevator ride down in episode 30, what was it, 35? Was that the penultimate episode? I don't remember. Or no, it was 34. Yeah, there was like a, I remember your response after that. Like, we all stopped recording. You were like, huh. And I was really worried that you were like, that I had like hijacked the character. What I didn't want you to think is that like, I had decided that all of your past or whatever was, was. a lie and you've been this God the whole time that you've forgotten about, which wasn't necessarily the case. No, but I mean, here's the thing is the way I see it, and I've seen it since the beginning, since balances, I like to kind of like hand-griffin things and say, like, you can feel free to use this if you want. Sure. Like, here's the, like, Flamebright, right?

Was that thing of, like, Bobby has this necklace, and it's a crystal. Right. And maybe that's something. And, like, I like, I like being surprised by things like it. Because I trust Griffin to never like change my decisions or take anything away from me. And so like another one was I, when the episode went up, all these people started tweeting like,

whoa, Dr. Harris Bonkers, what the fuck? What? And I was like, wait, what happened? What was this? And I went back and listened to it and Griffin had the scene where Dr. Harris-Bonger's like, caught a snake with his hands. And I was like, hey, we need to talk about Dr. Harris-Bongers, Griffin.

And it made complete sense to me, right? Once we discovered that, Obria Sylvain and Dr. Harris-Bongerz had basically spent all this time next to like pure uncut Sylvain. I love that shit. Yeah, I want to talk about the story, the formlessness of the story and how you all sort of shaped it. Because like, and I've talked about this in like interviews about this stuff before, but

like this was the season where I really didn't have a ton of. planned, especially as we moved into the back half. Like, the first half was kind of a bit more guided in the sense that, like, I was establishing the rules of these worlds and the characters and all that shit. But there were a lot of beats that just, like, everything shifted around them. One being, I can think of two, well, three, right? Like, Ned dying was obviously a huge pivot point. Aubrey melting the snow and starting this, like, rivalry, essentially, with Keith and the Hornets.

Like, that was not planned, and it led to some. some like cool shit in the next couple of arcs. But the biggest one was Duck sort of saving Billy and befriending him. Like the idea of you all having a, you know, a man on the inside with these like omniscient, godlike aliens that have been sowing war throughout the universe. Like that idea did not enter my mind until Justin did what he did. And so, like, I just wanted to say, like, way, way more than balance, like, the, the, the micro decisions you all made, like, the very micro, like, not even huge character moments, but, like, small decisions you guys made, like, led to a fork in the stream that, you know, sent the story spiraling in a completely different direction. It's so interesting, though, because even from being on the inside of it, right, like, I cannot imagine Amnesty without Billy.

Like, you know what I mean? Like, it's, I think it's, it's a much different, like, story path than we took with balance. But I think by the time we got to the end, I think about all the things that happened. And I think like, yeah, those are the things that needed to happen for amnesty to be right. You know what I mean? Like, I think it was good that you came into it with a looser structure after we were more experienced at like playing games and telling stories together. Because it felt as, I mean, a lot of the questions we got were like, was that always the plan with Thacker? Was that always the plan with Aubrey?

The answer to all those is no. Like, nothing was always, nothing was always the plan. at all. And what I love about the, the, the, the, the, the,

the, the, just made about Duck, like, not just fucking murdering. Like, that arc especially, can you talk about,

like, what your decision- making it? Because you, like, just did not want to kill anything. Well, I struggled with it, right,

because that, I mean, he's a forest ranger. Like, and it's like that it just didn't seem like murder would come,

like, very, easily to him. I'm sure there's an example. There's probably one or two that I just aren't springing to mind, but like, I don't recall him killing anything. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know that he did. If I did, you know, maybe earlier on or maybe I just didn't notice, but like, I really struggle with that because I kind of created a character who was a blunt weapon who didn't really have a taste for violence. And that would have been, like,

I think that that is a part, if you want to look at how amnesty was different from balance, like, I think having your number one damage dealer be a pacifist sort of, like, that certainly changes your tone a little bit. Dad, did you feel hamstrung,

not with like Ned's ability set? Like, did you struggle with, like, how to contribute in, individual scenarios. Yeah, especially in action scenarios and the hunts. I had to really struggle to figure out how what good Ned would do. That was kind of why I really liked getting the narf blaster. Yeah. You know, because, you know, all of a sudden, when you're in the narrative stuff and you're investigating, you know, you can ask questions and you have all this flexibility and it's all observation and everybody has the ability to do that. But be honest, you know, when you get into a

combat situation, which there was always going to be a combat situation, right. Ned was not, you know, a combat kind of guy. And, and, and I think even if, I don't think he was even designed that way. Ned's a great side character for helping with everything else. So it got to point where I, you know, decided, well, you know what, he would, maybe he would distract, uh, and, you know, and then run away. Or, you know, he would, you know, aid somebody else. There were a lot of times I felt like I was passing along, you know, to the next person or trying to help people with their roles. Games great about that, though. Like, yeah, the game is. Yeah. Fully set up that. Two quick things. The narf blaster one, I'm very glad came about because I was

really from the start trying to think of a way where none of you guys would have these big heroic moments by shooting things with a gun. And I know Nerf Blaster you could argue is that, but like the idea of glorifying, like, actual gun seems like a bad thing, but him having this magic

Nerf gun was, I think, a decent way around that. And the idea of y'all being pacifist, I did, like, for a while when I was thinking about the ending once I thought about like reconciliation and that being sort of the final beat, doing a sort of like Undertale style or really any game with like a morality system like weighing your your good versus your evil in all of the

hunts, your peacefulness versus your war making. But that that was that was way too, I don't know, that was way too gamey. And also like y'all were super pacifist. I feel like the whole, the whole season, except for the time that Thacker, I think, threw a spear through a guy's hand. That was pretty gnar. Well, that happens. Griffin, you mentioned the ending, right? A lot of people wanted to know about Beacon and the ending and what exactly was happening there and was that the plan all along for Beacon and any thoughts on this? No, like, again, no. It wasn't the plan all.

Like, nothing was the plan all along. That wasn't the plan until like an hour before we recorded. Like, I had this idea of, uh, like, I don't know how much I really want to get into because there's a certain amount of like, if I try to explain the mechanics of Beacon, like, where did Beacon come from? Can I say how I understood it and you tell me, okay. How I understood it was the reconciliation, they had like a system in place of voting if they ever felt like their plan.

was aggression and not suppression. Right. If it was like now we're trying to take out planets rather than just taking out planets that are going to be a threat. Right. If they became the thing that they swore to destroy it. Right. And when he put Beacon into the dome, it was like inserting like a virus, like the thumb drive

into the system. Yeah. Yeah. That's it. And so his aggression then like poisoned the system and made them all feel so aggressive that they had to cease the project. Yeah, like, and, and the idea of Justin and I never had a formal conversation about Duck's Destiny, which, like, as a chosen, that's your whole schick.

And if we had never gotten around to some sort of moment of Duck's agency being a pivotal, like, either force for good or for bad in this world, like, I think that would have been really, kind of strange. And so, yeah. Yeah, I dug that, um, I dug that in the end, Ducks thing that he had to do was give away beacon.

Like that, that, that it, it, it, it lent a nice parallel to the story, I think. You know, he wouldn't take him up initially and then,

you know, to sort of finish the arc, he had to like, return him somewhere else. Like, it, it wasn't even like, he was wielding Beacon as a weapon as much as he was just the messenger taking it.

And I was his destiny. I don't know if you intended this or not, Juce, but what I also really loved about that. Probably not, Trave, probably not. It kind of implied that the reason Duck was chosen is because he didn't want to fight, right? Where somebody who was like super bloodthirsty had wielded Beacon, like, they probably wouldn't have come to this moment. So you needed someone who specifically did not want, like, to do it to wield the most aggressive aggressive weapon known to man.

Comic, like, comically aggressive. I'm much more interested in the, in, I'm much, and I'm, now I'm getting, now I'm bloviating, but like, I'm very much more interested in, we know that it wasn't a destiny in the traditional sense, because Minerva just chose Duck from the parties that were available. So it wasn't that, I'm much more interested in, like, what do you do with the opportunities that are presented to you? Yeah. And that, I think, is more interesting to me than, like, Duck denied his destiny or

accepted his destiny. it's like Duck made the most of an opportunity that was that was in front of him and he played his part in the in the bigger picture. By the way, by the way, Beacon, my favorite NPC. Beacon is very good. So you have brought this to me. Let's let's do a quick kind of, we'll do a rapid fire answer here. Favorite NPC.

My favorite was Muffy and Winthrop just because they went from being these weird mentioned characters to be, to being like hunters of man. You all were more plugged into like the social response to Muffy and Winthrop. But they were still fully poachers, yes? They were not just poachers. Murderers. Okay, cool. Everybody seemed to be very into them.

I guess I like that moral conflict. They reminded me of the couple from National Lampoon's Christmas vacation. Absolutely. That's our second. Yeah, that's our second National Lampoon vacation reference for the, I liked, I mean, I liked Keith and Hollis. Like, I like this idea of like a cool as, I guess Keith doesn't really fit in there, but Hollis being like this cool as shit stunt biker, you know, trying to break the law in Westwood. Like that act of rebellion, I thought was very cool and neat foil to Aubrey. But the

character that kind of surprised me the most was Janelle, like the, because that was the NPC that by far you all spent the most time with. Like, you spent more time with Janelle than you did with Mama, which is like who I kind of based the whole campaign around when I was like designing it and the relationship that came out of you and Janelle, Aubrey, I thought, was like really neat because it wasn't instantly this deep emotional maternal connection. And it almost, I don't think it ever was like a maternal connection as much as it was just like you all becoming friends who mutually respect each other. And all I, you know, that's true of Minerva and Duck as well.

And that like evolved into a more serious relationship out of that. So yeah, my favorite NPCs that I guess are the ones you all actually spent time with. Yes. What about you, Dad? Oh, yes. Well, Beacon, but I also liked Boyd Moshe. I like Boyd a lot just because I deepened, deepened Ned's story. And I like it.

I like the kind of bad guy characters. Yes. To answer another question real quick, yes, that was Sephiroth. Griffin created a Sephiroth summon in the game. Once again, like another kind of virus program that Billy put in there, Sephiroth, attacking everyone. because he had played Final Fantasy 7. It was really great.

There was a lot of classic PlayStation shit that influences campaign, and I love that. Because originally I was planning on having it be set in the late 90s, and so, like, you know, that actually being a focus, but weirdly, like, that aesthetic,

which I am super into, ended up being a big part of it. More questions. Okay. Who was that woman at the end talking to Thacker? It was the quell, right? Yes. I mean, it was the embodiment of the quill.

and that's I did the techno slur y'all knew who watched up Griffin what happened to pigeon I get she went to jail like what happens usually when people shoot somebody

check out our fucking stage play yeah will we ever adapt will we ever adapt to animacy I don't know do you have $120 that you are offering because it takes a lot of money you get a production like that

I'm sure like there are opportunities for it it's just a different kind of story than balance so we have to like Think about it. Real quick. Folks are going to murder me if I leave pigeon at that. She, she, she, I, I imagine that there is a, there is a happy end there because what

happened was an accident, but like that, that story didn't necessarily end super well for her. And again, if you had spent more, more time with her, you all let her into the, like, secret. And we talked about this during the campaign and then, like, didn't contact her anymore. And so, like, I don't know. I don't necessarily think that story evolved very much. Why did the shapeshifter want Ned to steal shade tree for Mama?

That was just just so discontent, right? And the whole thing, yeah. Everything that he did in the entire, or I guess I don't, yeah, I guess that he did was to tear your party apart and to start this war and to try and destroy the Green Bank telescope. Those were his three objectives. One last big question. What inspired your PCs? I can start because I said it many times. Yeah, we've talked about this, I think. Well, sure, just real quick. Because people also ask, I got to quite, well, we can transition into a couple quick questions. somebody asked How did Travis decide he wanted Danny to be Aubrey's love interest? And also did you create Aubrey with

bisexuality in mind? And that's from Mo and, sorry, that's from India and Becky. Yes, I created her with bisexuality in mind because I based her on like five bisexual women that either I am friends with or fans of. She is named after and most directly inspired by Aubrey Plaza. But also my friends, Tybee, Kate, Verona, and Gabby.

And I didn't intend her to immediately get into a relationship with Danny, but then she kind of met Danny during this huge, like, fluctuation in her, like, understanding of reality. And I think Danny, like, became an anchor point for her. And I think Aubrey also then was giving to Danny both, like, this feeling of belonging, right? Both because she was Sylvain and because she accepted her for who she was. So I think as I saw that relationship develop, I saw them both. like giving so much to each other that I just could not imagine Aubrey not being with Danny. Yeah. Who else has a question here that we want to do? Well, Ned was inspired by, I saw Brian Blessed on the Graham Norton show and just thought that was pretty. But also Svenguli, Zacharly, and all those great old monster movie hosts. I just, I love those characters. Griffin, what are your thoughts on Barclay and Stern?

and were you expecting that ship to develop or not? Yeah, fuck yeah. Like, I wanted, again, like, and I'm not- Who doesn't want Bigfoot to date an FBI agent? Right, and that's like, I did want that from the start, but, like, if y'all don't spend, this is the thing, and I promise I'm not being like catty or whatever, but, like, if y'all don't spend time with certain characters,

if you don't spend time with Pigeon, if you don't spend time with Agent Stern, like, I can't, I can only do so much, like, development in the background because then it's, you know, just me talking to myself. So the idea of an FBI, agent hunting down Bigfoot but then accidentally falling in love with them like of course that's my shit come on yeah and so like I but again everyone's shit I can only do I can only do so much with that if you all don't you know hang hang more with them I guess Griffin Aaron wants to know how did you

do the computerized conversation with Billy I just talked to you guys and then I went on to like a website and redubbed it the end uh Justin how a duck and maneuver are very good and wholesome how long did you have this in mind? That's from Abby. I can't say that it was like long term. I kind of realized it in the same way that you might realize it about a real person, like that you had an affection for them. I can't say it was long term because I had no idea. Like we did not have the time to realistically flesh that out.

Like realistically, you're not going to see that relationship blossom in real time. It just, it wasn't that sort of story. We didn't have the time to, I think, dig into it that way. Like the world was sort of hanging in the balance so early on when we did the time jump it sort of occurred to me that like That what is this guy have? Like what is he where would he? What would his next Sort of thing be and then who does Minerva have like what is is Minerva staying here on the planet and and And if so why and then I thought about like the intimacy that would breed from Someone being like that

directly connected to you like seeing everything watching you change watching you grow up and watching all that stuff and this sort of intimacy that would be there and Doug was always kind of a loner we never really met anybody that like I mean there's Juno but like he didn't have a lot of

like connections or bonds to people so I thought it made sense for the two of them to have a relationship together they both seem to really enjoy each other and respect each other and Griffin how did Janelle break her leg

that's from Mary there were so many people who like reached out thinking like this was the teaser for Amnesty 2 and it's not like this was a like I thought about this just at some point like there'd be a character with an injury they were hiking the whole fucking planet trying to like restore life to it she tripped or something like that's about where I've got like it it's just like a thing that happens sometimes with people uh so I can I do can I do this one really quick yeah Griffin what things did the players do during the finale that caught you off guard because you each did at least one thing uh for Thacker it was saving

Vincent. You saved Vincent. Like, I fully thought you all were going to have to have this tragic fight with a possessed Vincent, and Thacker just straight up deleted that confrontation, just fully nullified it, which is, like, wild and not really what I expected. It's not like Vincent dying was a huge fulcrum upon which, like, the rest of the finale rested, but it was a surprising thing. I mean, for Duck, it was just the choice you made in the final scene, like, where you, where you ended up, like, did not, I, the idea of Duck leaving West Virginia is, like, not something that I anticipated, but you fully justified it. And it was, it was a huge surprise. And I think for Aubrey, it was when you brought Billy back into, like, tangible

form. Yeah. Because I was thinking there would be a whole thing of, like, you can't just leave this station unmanned after you, after you, like, defeat reconciliation or whatever. So, like, who's going to have to stay behind to try and, like, restore peace to them? And it was Billy. And that's great, because I love the final scene you all. Like, that is the extent to which you all sort of like chopped and screwed the story in the ending. There is so much, I know we have time. We don't have time. But like, there is, uh, I'll have to find some other way to like talk about it.

Maybe I'll do like a tell-all, like, thing for a Max Fun Drive, whatever. But like, there was so much shit that, uh, that we didn't get to with regards to, like, old lore about the Green Bank telescope and how I try to actually incorporate that into this, like, all this stuff that. I guess we'll have to get to later at some point. But now let's talk about the fucking future, baby. Yeah, so first, I think probably the biggest thing is like going back to D&D. Because also a lot of people asked about like Monster of the Week versus D&D. And I think I loved playing Monster the Week, but I think we, I think we looked at D&D all wrong a little bit when we started doing balance of we said there's so many rules. and it's, you know, it can feel so restrictive,

but then you can ignore as much of that as you want, right? And if you stop, like, at least for me, when I stopped looking at it as rules and started looking at as possible story prompts, of like, if you look at like all the ability checks and everything, like that's a thing of like, I don't know, maybe I'm going to acrobatics it, right? And you know what I loved about Amnesty

and is something I'm for sure going to take into the next season, is this idea of, action first and then game mechanics, which is to say, like, in balanced, you would say, uh, Magnus is going to do an attack. And in Amnesty,

you have to say, like, I rush in there and I try to, you know, stab him, uh, through the hand, uh, trying to like pin him to, like,

you have to describe the action and then you do it. Which is like, was, it made the combat so much more visual in a way that like, I for sure want to like make sure we, we try and do that in, in graduation. And also I will say like a big, uh,

inspiration for it was like we went and did tiny heist with Dimension 20, which comes out in January, and I'm very excited about. And the world in that was so well thought through that it was basically like the big playground for us, right? And so that like that was another thing that I loved doing in Amnesty. And I think we kind of got to in balance. But in Amnesty, like the first thing Griffin did was like draw the map of Kepler. And it began to feel really, really, really like, a real place that we were playing in and became a lot more of like a sandbox. And so I kind of carried that over into graduation. And I've like drawn maps and I have like a layout of the school and everything.

And that's, I like giving all of these different places that you could go look at and I know what is there. That you can say like, I think I want to explore this and I know what that is. And I think D&D has more mechanics also for a variety of things. that a variety of characters can do, where I think Monster of the Week works great if you have like a team of like three to five investigators, right? But if you start to say like, I wanna have like 10 NPCs in a scene, right,

and the player characters, I think you need more variety in storytelling in a scene like that for them to be able to like all feel like they're doing different things. Yeah. Travis, are you excited or not? nervous to take over DMing, because I can say I'm extremely excited to not be DMing this time. I am excited and nervous. So I'm nervous because I've tried intentionally to keep the story looser in my head, right? Like I have purposefully not sat down and said, and this is where I want

to be by the end of the arc, right? Because I don't want to do that. That is not good storytelling. But I'm excited because I'm so happy to have all the ideas out of my head so that I can sleep. because I keep laying down to go to bed and thinking of a new NPC. I at this point have designed, no exaggeration, 50 NPCs and 40 of those I've done as fully playable characters in case I ever need to. And I'm so excited to get that out of my brain

so that I may rest. Cool. Well, I'm looking forward to playing it. I still wish you guys had done my idea, which was Oops All Jerkers. where we all are different jokes. I cannot wait to con Justin into like DMing something that's not the Sherlock Holmes game.

Someone write me the rules for oopsal. Oobes else. Like a lot of people asked about, because when I put it out, it was so funny to me that I said Taz G and encourage people to guess what it is and nobody guest graduation. And there were a lot of really amazing guesses and a lot of people started skewing towards like space opera,

which Hootenanny is the fun version of it. We got that out of our system, baby. Yeah. And I like this idea of like structure and characters, but basically it's like a playground for you all to do whatever you want in the world. So like I really, so we sat down while we were in LA, the four of us and for the first time like talked through

the concept for the next game and like kind of hammered it out together. And while I'm still like at the helm of it, this is really like a co-creation of the four of it. Like, you guys gave me a lot of great ideas. If it goes stinky now, he's- Yeah, I'm trying to spread the brain. No, but you guys gave me input into it instead of me just, like, sitting you down day one

and surprising you with all the elements. And so that's one of the reasons I'm so excited to sit down and play it is because you guys have a concept of the world and the tone and everything before we sit down. And, like, we've talked about the characters together and we've talked about, like, everything. I'm excited.

Listen, that's it. They don't get any more than that. That's it. Did we say graduation? It's graduate. You saw that. Yeah, you used to watch the trailer if you didn't watch the trailer. It's going to be fucking great.

Why are you, why are we still, you know, horse trading over this. I have been thinking about this for six months or more. And you've been talking about it for seven. I just want to tell everyone. I want to tell everyone about it. I'm my back teeth are floating. I just created an MPC the other day that I'm so excited about. Thanks for listening, everybody.

create an NPT, that's a non-player toilet, that I can use right now. Maybe I will think of a whole, like, how does everyone go to the bathroom in there? Well, they shit, and then they shit right on the floor, and then they use magic to make it disappear. Buy everybody. Congratulations. We'll be out on the 31st. No, it's too late. Everybody left.

Maximumfund.org. Comedy and culture. Artist-owned. Listener supported. Hello, my name is Tusk Henderson, and I am an outdoorsman. Are you looking for a new comedy podcast? This month's episode of Beef and Dairy Network Podcast has as its guest, the wonderful Nick Offerman, playing the part of Tuskenderson, Adventurer, and Outdoorsman.

Think about fitting yourself a month's worth of provisions and a half-ton cow into a kayak. So if you've never listened to the show before, this might be a good place to start. I string a bow string between her horn tips and I can fire a spear off the top of her head. and took in some very delicious cod. So, if you're after a new comedy podcast, why not try the Beef and Dairy Network for Maximum Fun? Download it now! You flip a cow upside down, they make an excellent toboggan.