The Adventure Zone - The The Adventure Zone Zone: Experiments Post-Mortem, More on Season Two!

Episode Date: April 5, 2018

Everyone's favorite Talk Show About a Podcast Hosted By The People Who Do the Actual Podcast is back, just in time for the MaxFunDrive! We're answering your questions about the experimental arcs, and discussing our plans for season two with The Adventure Zone: Amnesty! 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

It's the, it's a show, it's, it's our own after show in the show. Dan, that was a good start. Well, I'm trying to think of how to phrase it, you know, it's an after show, but during, it's a during show. Travis began the show being chased down a hill by Prince Humperdink, and he threw himself down. Roll, roll, roll, roll, roll. When he got to the bottom, he began. You know, sometimes, you know, I think this applies to the show, too. You know, sometimes you open your mouth and you're like, the words are going to be there.

And sometimes they are. Yeah, sometimes they are. This is the adventure adventure zone. Zode, zone, zone. Yep. It's the talk show where we talk about the thing, and it's the Max Fun Drive. And we're done with the experimental arcs. There's a lot of stuff going on.

And maybe we should answer some questions. We got a ton. Thank you for sending them in. Thank you. Everybody who wanted to know if Aeryl would get his root beer, which is to say the 400 of you that emailed about Aerole ever getting his root beer, the answer is So that's one question.

That's one question down. We're already deep in the shit. And that's the biggest cliffhanger established in any of the mini-arks. Let's take a quick moment before we get rolling, though. I want to thank you to our fan base. We've never had a name for them,

so I'm going to start calling you Bachelor Nation. Thank you, Bachelor Nation, for your support of the Adventure Zone. It honestly means a lot. If you weren't with us this time last year, we should mention that this is the Max Fund Drive, which means it's the one time of year we come to your hat in hand

and say, hey, could you give us a little bit of money for what you have taken from us, which is our gifts. And we have, that's how we always phrase it. Yep, yeah, yeah, right. Yes. So we're a part of the Max Fund Network, and the network is supported by donors like you, hopefully, where we ask you during the Max Fund Drive,

if you enjoy our show, think about supporting us. You can go to maximum fun.org slash donate. Find out about the different membership levels and the gifts you will receive if you donate at them. We're going to talk a lot more about them just to let you know, though, $5 a month. That'll get you all the bonus content that every show in the network has ever done. And that includes an episode we did this year that Justin ran called The Adventure Zone Elementary, in which we played a game called Four Sherlock Holmeses and a vampire who's one of the aforementioned Sherlock Holmeses.

It was very fun, and we've gotten a lot of very sweet tweets, little sweet-y-tweets about it. I don't think I got enough credit, and this was Dad's idea. I don't think I got enough credit for continuing our naming scheme. Yes. I was absolutely brilliant. That was Dad's idea. I shouldn't have taken care of all. I also want to say, along with that, there's also you can hear the Adventure Zone Knights,

which is the steampunk one that I created, including special guest, the Landman and Miranda, playing D&D for the first time ever. And it was very good. And probably the last, wouldn't it the last? And probably the last, yes. You can check that up maximum fun.org forward slash donate. Go now if you're interested in hearing that stuff, don't wait, because it's so easy to forget it. And the Max Fun Drive only goes two weeks.

We're going to talk more about it. But first, let's see. Let's start with the questions. Yeah. This question is probably for Griffin, but maybe for all of us. Will Trey's horny boys still be the focus of live shows moving forward? Or will live shows start featuring Amnesty? and that's from Brian.

I think we may get to a point where it would be cool to do an amnesty show. But everything we've talked about since we wrapped up balance is that we would continue doing the balance crew for the live shows. So the one I have... I think it would be hard for us to...

The only time I see maybe is like after amnesty is like complete maybe wanting to return to it for like a one-off. But honestly, I love the balance world, and I love those characters. And it honestly, I would be too sad if I thought we weren't going to go back to that. Yeah, for sure. This is a way, it's a way of us for like continue for us to keep carrying the torch while also sort of moving on to two things. Because I think of the live shows and the episodes that come out of that as like weirdly like their own, their own thing.

And so that's how I justify it. with balance because the story is completed, it's so much easier to do one-offs without having to worry about like character development or plot development or anything. Whereas if we tried to do a live show like in the middle of a live, like an arc that's still going, you know, it's not, it's easy to do like semi-canonical one-offs with, with, you know, Bureau of Balance, right? But we can't really do that with an arc we're still establishing. Could we do it? Could we do two acts? Could we do? to like balance in the first act and amnesty in the second act? Yeah, sure, let's just double up the fucking work. The problem with that is really Griffin. He's the rate living factor on that. I know.

Yeah. I know. I've got my Ned cosplay already. Listen, every night before I go to bed, I do my stretches to try to grow two extra lobes onto my brain. Two extra Lisa lobes right onto my brain. But no luck so far.

Were you guys considering a space-type game? If so, what would the game have been called and why didn't it happen, or do I have something to impatiently wait for? That's from Alex. Yeah, we got this question a lot because in our artwork, we did include a section that looks like spaceships. Well, it looks like spaceships because it's spaceships. I had an idea for a space campaign that I wanted to do that I've had for years that I was

thinking we were going to get to doing these experimental, during the experimental arc phase, but, um, and maybe this is like a good time to talk about this. Like, it's been eight months since we wrapped up balance. And we, the reason that we're kind of like jumping into season two and Amnesty now is just like we all feel this sort of, uh, I don't know what the right word is here. maybe anxiety about just like we're ready for we're ready to do season two we miss anticipation anticipation we're not anxiety because it's a wildly there's a void there's a void anticipation looks a lot like anxiety up in this whole brain but um yeah it it it doing the experimental arts has been really cool and we've learned so much and we've i'm really happy with

the stuff that we did but there is something about like uh expanding a world and knowing that you have like a long runway in front of you to expand a world that like we've we've missed and so we've been ready to do it so it just wasn't right but yeah i still have this idea for a space game um and if i can jump in and expand to a larger point because the next question is from lulu about like dust and commitment and we left them on like uh cliffhanger endings and if we're going to get back to him here's one of the things like the biggest takeaway i would say from the mini arcs is like when we were doing doing balance, we were so focused on it. And that's how we ended up with three years of it,

right? Because like, it just felt like we can't start on anything else till this is done. And now from doing the mini arcs, it kind of was a inadvertent test and like an accidental proving ground of like, oh, we can work on a lot of different things at once. So like one of the things that we're kind of looking to do with moving forward is to have amnesty be like, you know, the main story in the main weeks in what some might call good Thursdays. Good Thursdays. Right. But then in the...

Which, by the way, this is that, that is an inadvertent way of addressing another question that comes later that we can answer really quickly. We are going to go back to biweekly because now I think that all of us had a run at B&DM. it's doing that shit every week is so brutal. It's so hard. But now, like, if I'm ready to do another, you know, couple episodes of dust, we can record those and do them in the off weeks. Or if dad is ready to do another arc of commitment, we do them in the off weeks.

Or if Justin comes up with something he wants to DM, we can do it in the off weeks. Or if we just find, like, a really funny one-off like we did with the Sherlock Holmes game, we can put it up in the off weeks. I would fucking love to do more one-offs. That's something we never do. Specifically play all the experimental arcs I was happy with, but we didn't really play short-form games that were designed for short-form campaigns. We played like long-form games except for Sherlock Holmes as in a vampire.

And that was fucking really, it was really fun. And it was really funny. And it gave us a lot of freedom to just like goof off, I feel like. But also there was no tension between. between us and how we were playing the game, because the game was designed to be like one episode of a podcast, if that makes sense. I would love to do more stuff.

And I do also wanna tie it back to the Max Fund Drive because one of the reasons we're looking to generate more content is like, we know that it matters to you because we've seen your support over the last couple of years and we know how much this kind of content and how much you look forward to it. So it's one of the things we've been looking at for a while of, how do we make it weekly,

how do we generate more content? And the thing is, is like, when we're doing the main storyline, we just can't, we can't consistently do it weekly. It's just too much, right? But now that we have all these other threads to pluck out, we can fill in some of those gaps

and generate more content for you because we know how much that matters to you. And it's because of your support for things like Max FundDrive that we know you care about this content enough for us to find opportunities to make more of it. Which is... All the content again, I'm gonna jump it.

It's really rough. It's so rough. Which is not to say that we are going to go weekly. We're like every off week. We're gonna have some other thing. There's no way we would be delayed. This will be very, very, very sporadic. But this is just a way for us to, we loved these worlds so much.

And like, we do want to return to him. And this is kind of what we're thinking about it. I tell you, I want to talk, uh, Now that we've played all the experimental arcs, and this isn't an actual question, but I wanted to discuss it real quick. I want to talk about commitment, because commitment was really interesting to me in that. Commitment was probably the character that I thought the most about because we had the most downtime in between. And it's the character that, like, I was really, like, I was very excited about Irene and Cardala. I actually think an interesting thing with commitment is that I think the world and the characters were all super cool.

I'm not sure that game, I'm not sure fate necessarily lends itself to what we do. And I've only realized that like after playing the other games. And it's an interesting phenomenon in that fate seems very well designed for storytelling. But I think that it is, it creates a sort of collaborative storytelling that is more interesting to the people playing it than it would be to people necessarily. listening to it. Dad, did you, like, you think that's a fair take? Yeah, I went with fate because when I came across it, it's, that was what appealed to me about it was the storytelling angle of it and the collaborative. It felt very theatrical to me. And it was about the storytelling and about character development. But at the same time, it did have mechanism for conflict.

And if you're going to do a superhero story, there has to be battle. There has to be. There has to be an element of of battle involved in that it's i think that's just you know part of the the whole story so yeah i would love to bring back commitment and and pursue the the storylines and the plot lines but i i i might look for a game that lends itself you know more towards that that kind of format because it wasn't a typical jack kirby you know every two pages somebody's in a fist fight right kind of deal but it that is it does need to have that mechanism though That's not to say that it's a, it is a bad game. No, not at all.

I do not take that. I think it's a very cool game. It's just like the same way that we probably couldn't have done fourth edition Dungeons and Dragons for balance, right? Because that was much more about how your characters are in physical space as compared to fifth edition, which was much more just talking over a table. Like certain games don't really fit what we do. and like tracking aspects and running the... Tracking aspects was the big thing. I think that that is so perfect

for having note cards in front of you. And if somebody actually like designed... Like, I think someone would actually need to design software specifically to handle that remotely where everybody's looking at the same cards and stuff. But then even if... Even if we can see it, the audience... Like, that's a lot to ask them to remember.

That's the thing is I feel like one of the things, one of the big learning experiences from doing the mini-arcs was like what is the mix at which Adventure Zone works best, right? Because there are a lot of actual play podcast that I absolutely love. But I don't really consider Adventure Zone a pure actual play podcast because I don't feel like, I don't feel like you could listen to Adventure Zone and come away understanding exactly how to play the game. Like that was one of the things with Dust that I really liked about Urban Shadows is it was

such a loose rules structure that, like I think maybe like 25% of each episode was actually about like gameplay so 25% would actually be a good reflection of my understanding of the rules of urban church right so this is this is a good opportunity to talk about you talked about like sort of how we balance no pun intended between like different um different sort of goals as as we're doing the show and we got sort of we got two sort of questions here um that we can sort of address this at uh rob asked and this is something that we got from a lot of folks and sort of a lot of different iterations. A lot of discussions on popular TAS-related internet forums lately have been focused around the actual play component of

Taz and whether or not that has or should take a backseat to the more narrative-driven aspects of the show. The arms outstretched moment of balance that were born out of crazy dice rolls or the surprise spellcasting like Phantom's seat are the reason a lot of us listen. Will Monster of the week deliver on the actual play aspects the same way D&D did? Any insights to this would be super rad. And what I think is so interesting about this question, it's all, I think, like a of perspective, because those two examples that you listed, and I know there's a lot of people who were put off when we switched off D&D and when we announced that season two would not be in D&D, even though that's something that we, I feel like we've been pretty up front with

since balance wrapped up. Both arms outstretched and Phantom Steed do, in some way, sort of, like, those are sort of things that happen kind of because of the rules of D&D that we were playing, but they are also two big examples of us explicitly saying, fuck the rules. Phantom Steed, like, if you want to look at it literally, like, that's a spell. You have to, like, I don't know, channel for a minute. It's not designed to create a magic binaicorn that, first of all, it's not supposed to create a unicorn at all, right? It's supposed to create a horse, but whatever.

But it's, like, not designed to, like, catch somebody out of the air as they're falling off of a moving race car. and arms outstretched was literally three back-to-back-to-back examples of things that, like, completely break the rules of D&D. Having a magic item that instantly rips the soul out of somebody's body is not, like, in the player's handbook and having a soul jar cast you into this, like, astral plane where you can fly around and grab people as they're being sucked into a hell-death dimension, and then a dad's spell, I forget what it was, but that wasn't how that fucking worked even a

little bit. It never was. Not even a little bit. And so like there are things that people bring up. And when I think about things like Phantomsed, and that's one that we get a lot is like, I'm worried stuff like that's not going to happen in Monster the Week. Like stuff like that also shouldn't happen in Dungeons and Dragons if we're following the rules all it. Don't you worry about that. Let's, I think that you can also chalk this up to the experimental arts in that we had, there are two things that I think have been sort of missing from like what people would classically think. is the Adventure Zone that I believe will be able to do better in Amnesty, but like, and that is more dice rolls and like letting mechanics dictate some plotting. And also like more goofy shit. Yeah. Because we each had, not me, but I think everybody had stories that they wanted to get through. And we had a pace that we wanted to work through with these stories. And I think that because of that we were moving at like we tend to do

a lot more stuff in exposition and storytelling and dialogue versus like leaning on the rules. I think that also betrays a lack of confidence in those rules and those mechanics and like having an idea of how they work like you got to understand y'all

like we're pretty good at bullshitting we've been doing it for a long time. We're not necessarily great at like playing these these games because we've never played them before and trying to like learn a game while you create a story while you improv all the lines and the dialogue and also try to make it like entertaining it's really fucking hard and i think especially especially during introductory things like all of these mini arcs where this was the case in balance you go back and listen to the first couple episodes of literally every arc and especially later on like it is mostly

exposition because in order to like create this space where y'all can find your own solutions to stuff and sort of explore your thing, it does entail, especially fucking 11th hour, that is a lot of handholding to get you guys into this kind of complicated scenario of a town where things reset every hour and here's what you need to know about that. Okay, now we can do it. And that felt like how all these mini arcs are. And now that we're kind of moving into season two, it feels like we're going to have a lot more room to play around.

And I think Dust, I think Travis had to deal with that even more in dust because you're doing a murder mystery. You're doing something that is basically, here's some clues. Yeah. So you can figure it out. And there's a lot on there. I know when in commitment, you have certain things. You know where the story is going.

I did not have an ending. I honest to God did not have an ending plan. You mean, you didn't expect us to fly through the air on a helicopter eating strong bullies as we take a bad guy to the White House. That was the best fucking ending to any story ever. I have an imagination, but it's not quite like that. I did not know how the story was going to end. And so, you know, for me, I can't, I don't know about the rest of you guys, but for me,

the toughest thing was pacing. Well, the pacing of it. That's true for everything. This is, a lot of people pointed out that, like, Dust really felt like it ended fairly suddenly and like it could have gone another episode but here's the thing i had written down i have like a hundred pages of of shit that i wrote for dust but like i had written down like here's all the information that will lead them to this right and then suddenly it was done and like i didn't want to have an episode where it's just like i don't know right because that's not good pacing and the other

thing is it also when you're writing a mystery is like yeah if they go to here and talk to this person, it will all be figured out. And like, that wasn't happening. You know what I mean? And so it was one of those things a lot of people asked about like the banshee just straight up saying like, don't trust Conners. Here's who the killer is. But it was like I expected them to have a lot more conversations with Conners leading up to that. Right. And it just, it never happened. And I can't in, as the DM say, well, maybe you should go check with Connors. some more. It's fucking hard to DM a mystery. I want to, we're gonna pick up the pace on questions.

I'm just gonna hit you guys with some. I'm gonna, I'm gonna rest control from you. Okay. My question is for each of you. It's from Laura. That last one, uh, are, uh, uh, the question is for each of you. And I would like to know, what has surprised you most about the response to these mini arcs? And that's from Laura. I will just say for dust, I, I was sure that because it was like someone's been murdered and like somebody's life is on the line. that it would, I was worried that it was going to be like too serious and dark. And I think that it did skew that way a little bit. But overall, everybody was talking about like the funny parts of it.

And I do think that it has to do with like when you have a more serious story. I think the funny moments stand out a lot more. Yeah, especially when we did the setup episode, we saw like a lot of people saying like, why the fuck are they trying to make it serious? Like this is a comedy show. but in my opinion, the y'all's vamping on my throwing the gun at the bell was like, that was fucking hysterical to me. And this is, we have another question that we can answer like in a few seconds of somebody

talking about like, and this, we got this a lot of just like balancing, is it a comedy show now? It's getting more dramatic. And I really like, and this is maybe me getting defensive, but like, I don't think they're mutually exclusive. The show has certainly gotten more dramatic. And I felt this since we've been doing the adaptation of Here There Be Gervlins, where there weren't like any other than like Fandelon's destruction.

And then you guys immediately going right back to like Goofy Goof Goof, Goof, despite the fact that this horrible, horrible thing, it just happened. Like there weren't that many dramatic beats. And I feel like adding those to the show has really made it something cool. And I think a lot more people have kind of found the show because of those things. But I don't think that means that we can't do. funny shit anymore. And I don't necessarily think that's true

of the arcs. Oh, okay. Sorry, I meant to tell you guys. Oh, no. I don't know, man. It's just, it's salt and pepper, baby. It's salt and pepper. You got to have them both. You got both those flavors they highlight and balance each other. Dad, what is surprised you most about the response to the many

arcs? Gosh. I have loved how people have embraced the characters. I knew they would. but oh mr. confident over here well I mean I knew that

because I think one of the things that you guys bring to it is is creating very compelling you too daddy you also bring it I was basically thinking about commitment I love the fact that that Griffin got to be a character

I thought that was pretty cool and just everybody's response was just was so so great because... No, not everybody. Now, you do say everybody. Words have meanings.

No, stop. My contradictory thing is we had a lot of people who were very vocal about how we were following the rules or not following the rules of D&D. And I really don't think we got any of that, literally none of that, when we were doing these arcs. And I was genuinely worried about that because we were trying to learn and play a bunch of different games. And I think folks were, like, way cooler about, like, how we played these games than, than I expected and I really appreciated. I will also just say, like, talking about the learning experience of the arcs, I think as Justin pointed out, going into commitment, we had all this time to, like, work on our

characters. And so I think when we started commitment, we want, it was, it was almost like a rebound relationship, right, after balance, where we wanted to start at the same point we were, you know, when we finished balance. So we wanted to start with everybody knowing everything about our characters. And so, like, I remember in the setup episode, like, and this, person did and they went to school here and they learned this and this is the relationship they have with their parents and then and like it we were really trying to like start we did too much we did too

much set up in commitment I think by the time we even by the time we got to amnesty because there's another question we got of because this is something we talked about in the last uh the adventure zone zone we did at podcon of just like making characters but leaving gaps uh I as somebody who is like after we finished umnesty and by the way it has been so good to have this huge break between the first chunk of amnesty and where we are now, because y'all gave me, like, so much shit to work with, with the characters that you made and the enormous, enormous narrative gaps, like, teasing out, like, Ned inherited the cryptonomica and was a criminal who something went south and now is, like, living on the lamb. And it's like, well, that's so much shit for me to work with. And Duck having this history of him walking away from his destiny, but not really dialing into what that was or what that meant. And, Aubrey having these magic powers that we haven't explained. Like, that is so much shit to work on. And so I don't think we, I don't think we went as hard in amnesty as we definitely all

did in commitment where it was like, well, their favorite food is spaghetti. All right, you guys, you're going to have to. Wait, real quick, before we, before we do that, because this is associated, I want to know everybody's favorite character that you played in the mini arcs. Huh. Mine was Errol with a, with a bullet, man. I really like to do it. I think mine is Aubrey.

Like, honestly, it's, I, I, I just, I love, I love, like, wizards and stuff. Like, I, you know, it's, and I also, when I was thinking about Aubrey, based her off of, like, some of my favorite people in the world, like, some of my best friends. And so, like, that's super fun for me. But it also is, like, I like how much I don't know about her when we started. And, like, it was very interesting because, like, the first time. I spoke as Aubrey, I didn't know what the voice was going to be, and then I started talking, and the voice has informed so much about her to me. It's just really interesting. It's fun.

Yeah, my, uh, Cardala, I think, was probably the best character, because it's the one I worked on the hardest, but it was also the scariest to do because it was way out of my lane. And I was, I was, like, trying to work with a lot of stuff that I took very seriously and didn't want to fuck up. So that was very, that was very hard, but I think Cardala came out the best. uh augustus was probably the most fun to play but i've i choked with augustus i really wanted to make a character that like wasn't a good person like wasn't a bad guy and once i started talking that fucking savannah accent like i couldn't not make him like like a charming dude and i really fucked that up like i really did want to be i i had intent of being a a worse person i really did it was like it just I messed it up but I still regret that if we return to dust maybe I'll try to make

him more of a scumb bag I don't know um and then dad yeah dad I loved playing ned I love ned the pieces I just had the best time uh I like his personality and like Travis and I think Griffin for for commitment and for dust I did a lot of uh I had a big backstory for him that I that I didn't use that I still think will still apply and really pumped up about it. And that is something that like we didn't do until like fucking stolen century or no, I didn't get into Yel's backstories in balance until the going inside the chalice episode of balance, which was fucking 50 episodes in. And so having the opportunity. And that's why I was excited to like start over knowing what we know now. I want to say one thing about the character.

and stuff. The, what people don't understand is, like what Justin's talking about, it's really tough to play a character with those negative aspects. I mean, it was, it was tough for,

Travis may not admit it, but it was tough for him to play, Nadia in the fact that she had to be aloof and she had to be, you know, kind of standoffish. Yes, because I like playing with y'all. So, like, it was really hard to be a jerk, you know.

It's really tough to play a character like that because I had, I really thought about that with Gandy, you know, but it just, it doesn't, it just doesn't work. That was all of dust. Like, people have commented on, I thought Travis said it was going to be like all tense and no one was going to like each other. And it's like, yeah, but then, like, we got, you know, a good example of this. But we do. We do like each other quite a bit. At the Full Moon Saloon, like, you guys were so funny and charming. It made no sense for me to have character.

just straight up not like you for no reason. And that also harkens back to the length of the mini-archs and the fact that, you know, in balance, it developed over a natural period, you know, and really going back and looking at the graphic novel and stuff, I can see because they, you know, they developed that trust. And in that really, we had to jump in media res in the mini-arcs and that kind of puts more of a time pressure on you. Uh, I, dad, real quick, what's, uh, were you like a, the, before you created, um,

Nets Chacame, would you say you were like, the biggest Gravity Falls fan or were you just like, are you like the second biggest? You just love, God, he falls so much. I had watched, I had watched Gravity Falls one time with your oldest daughter. Yeah. And with my hand over my heart, I had no idea who gruncles. Stan was from Gravity Falls. And I saw the reaction.

Beem, be, be, beam, babe, baby, babe, baby. That's all the tweets we're getting right now. Beem, boom, boom, beam, be, be, me, me. But, and I will tell you this. And I appreciate it. I've also had so many people say, you got to watch it, you got to see. But I really knew from the get-go that something more was going on with amnesty. I knew.

So, no, I have not gone back and watched Gravity Falls. Yeah, there's an... For the very reason. It's a great show. I've seen like a few episodes, I think. I don't necessarily... I've seen like I'm fucking all. It's the bomb.

It's a good show. Yeah, it's a good show. It can be demoralizing a little bit. And I hope you, if you tweeted something like this, don't take this personally or anything. But like when you're making something, it can be demoralizing that like it seems like there's a impulse to connect it to something familiar. And I think there are definitely similarities. I mean, fucking. Gravity Falls has a rural town with monsters, and then there's like a shop where there's a person peddling bullshit or whatever.

Like, yeah, there's definitely similarities. I'm not like ignoring that, but it's a little bit demoralizing when, like, we did the setup episode, and then I think there's a difference between saying, like, this reminds me of Gravity Falls, and then, but, or like, this is, oh, you guys are doing Gravity Falls. And, oh, Ned reminds me of Gruncle Stan and Ned is Grunkelstam. It feels like, oh, well, I've seen this before. And I know that's not how it's meant, but it's a question of, like, volume, because dad got literally hundreds of tweets when he did the setup episode saying, like, oh, this is this character. Yeah, we got a favorite text from dad who's like, who the fuck is Uncle Stan?

What? I hope this is not sounding like us being too sensitive. It's just like at the scale at which we were getting feedback that was essentially this character is this character. We're big boys. You tweet, which you want. want you tweet what's in your heart we can handle it no but what we are here to do is we are here to a answer right reasons right reasons we're talking about bachelor nation do i don't why we we

i have explicitly moved away from bachelor nation i don't want to necessarily read those are our fans the bachelor nation have been supporting the adventure zone since its inception and i want to speak to bachelor nation the fans of the adventure zone okay i i want you to know i voted uh for zoneer boners and Justin chose. All right, Bachelor Nation is way better. Yeah. So it's a max fund drive. We're asking you if you enjoy our show,

if you've been listening to a lot of it and feel like you want to help support us, this is the best time of year for you to do that by going to maximum fund.org slash donate and becoming a member and picking the donation level that's right for you. If you do not have the means right now, totally, totally understand. We would never ask you to make a contribution

that you could not afford. Definitely, totally. But if you do have the means and you enjoy our show and you want to think about it like a, you know, a Netflix or a Hulu where you get your entertainment and you pay for it on a monthly basis, then we would encourage you to maybe think about doing the same here for the adventure zone. And especially if you listen, if you listen to a bunch of shows on the network like Mbim Bam and other shows, then, you know, maybe it makes more sense for you. We are about to indulge in my favorite Max Fund Drive tradition since we've started the Adventure Zone. It's where dad reads the gifts that you can get in his

fun voice that he does every year. Just stretch those cords and get a rolling. Just get a roll. Take a break here. 2018. Well, for $5 a month, of course, you get the exclusive bonus content for $10. Now, usually you do this guy, and that's

what's... Usually you try to sell the gifts a little bit more than just saying what they are. We got $10 a month. That's going to get you a drive exclusive enamel pen us designed by Megan Lincott and these are brand new designs holy cow that's awesome and they're

really beautiful for $20 a month but what's the pin look like I need you to describe the pen please the pin for for Taz yes the show we're currently recording I just don't see a pin for Taz it's Dr. Harris Bunkers with a little flame

in front of a that's why it was a rabbit Yeah, it's Dr. Harris Bonkers, PhD. All right, it's beautiful. The Mbim-Bam's good, too. It's all right. Also, every level that you move up, you get everything in the previous level, so at 10, you also get the bonus content. I think Still Buffering has the best one.

I don't know if you guys looked at all the designs. Don't hate. Why are you? It's like a dummies book. It says, how do adult? It's great. Anyway, that's just my personal. Well, I think $3.

$20 a best one. $20 a month. $20 a month. You get the Max Fund Family Cookbook. Where's my guy? Character voice. Yeah, character voice. For $20 a month, you get the Max Vaughan Family Cookbook,

it is lovingly created for you by MaxFond host. His book contains dozens of recipes from cocktails to desserts and everything in between. Plus, a bonus set of handsome space-themed cooking cutters. I also would like to add in my normal voice that we actually contributed to the MaxFund family cookbook because Spaghetti Geddon is in there with the recipe. Is it? Is the recipe just like a lot of spaghetti? Just too much spaghetti

No, Carol. Actually, Carol put down the recipe for the sauce. I filled in a little bit of backstory on spaghetti getting, but if you want to make the same spaghetti that was served up in spaghetti getting, almost killing three men, then that's in the cookbook. That's the spaghetti that fueled the gross Willy Wonka bit. Yep, episode 55. Episode 55.

And also, gosh, still rests on those laurels three. 345 episodes later, man. Jesus Christ. And then the maximum of 15. It also has, okay. It also has our mom's recipe for chess bars that I lovingly transcribed. Yeah, it's in there. It also has Rachel's recipe for chili.

Oh, no. There's a lot of good stuff there. Did Theresa and I, are we, once it didn't pull a, we. We really meant to. Oh, no. There's higher levels, too, that as much as I love Dad's voice, we don't need to hammer Hammer Antiques. We've got a ton of questions. If you're able to support us to that level,

holy shit, thank you all so much. But we don't really care what level you're able to support. All that we care about is that you show your support. And we're trying to get to 25,000 new and upgrading members. And what I hit upgrades in there, because we haven't mentioned that yet, but like, you've been a donor, a member for a while. And you're like, you know what? I'm listening to

even more shows this year. Or the shows that I've listened to have become even more important to me this year. Maybe consider upping that donation to the next level. We really appreciate it. And you'll get the gifts, too, if you, if you do that. Yeah, that's how you get the gifts.

You got to upgrade or become a new member. It means a lot to us to like, and it has meant a lot to us the way that you all have supported us and allowed us to turn this into a career. Dad got to retire from the radio station last year because of the money that you all give us to make this show. And that is so incredible. And like one of, I feel like, our proudest achievements is that we were able to get our dad out of this job that was not so great for him anymore. But also like it's just because of the more, the hours and he's so old, you know.

He's so old. But also like it's, it's cool for you all too because you get to feel this sense of like, like you're a part of the, a part of the show. Every time you listen to it, you know that you have directly supported it. And that's a really cool part of the network. So yeah, go to maximum fun.org slash donate now. Don't wait. Tell a friend, tweet about the show, the drive using the hashtag MaxFund Drive. And thank you all so much.

We're going to get through more questions. Time to get serious about questions. I'm taking the wheel away from you guys. I'm steering us to more questions. Okay. Will season two have an equivalent to magical cost to go where fans can submit content? Please be monsters. I want to submit monsters.

That's from Kyle. I don't know. I definitely going to keep doing the tweet about the show using the Zonecast, hashtag you'll end up as a character in the show. Like, that's for sure going to be a part of it. All of the games we did and the, like, powered by the apocalypse games are not so necessarily built around having a huge inventory of magical items, right?

They're more based around, like, what your characters can do and sort of more realistic, not realistic, but more sort of person-to-person interactions, based on like what your what your basic set of abilities are and so like I don't really know how I would fit this in but for what it's worth y'all motherfuckers went like 50 episodes without using any of the shit that you bought at the fantasy Costco or the fantasy gospel what about kryptonop could they could they put could they suggest things for the oh that could be good yeah things that could appear in the kryptonomica that wouldn't necessarily be like items that you all use but just sort of like flavor flavor every time you'll learn the cryptonomica, we can highlight like something that somebody pointed out.

My question is directed at Griffin. I was wondering if you could talk about the music of the many arcs. Was it harder to find a sound for each arc given the short time frame of each story? How is that process different from the balance arc? And that's from Heidi. And I'm assuming that's directed at both of us who have crafted all the music of the adventure tone together. Well, there was another, there's another question on the list of somebody asking if everybody else had thought about making music for their arcs because they thought that it added something to the show. I really regret not. I had a bunch of music for Amnesty, but I wasn't able to crank out a bunch of music for everybody's arcs other than the themes. And that was because,

one, because we were doing weekly, y'all, our fucking recording schedule was always, always, always, every week, weekend, week out, like down to the wire. And so I didn't know, like, what was going to be happening in each episode because I wasn't the one, like, writing it or preparing it. And so there was just literally, there was not enough time to, you know, to. to record music for it. But I do think it's like an important part of the, important part of the show. Now, Justin, how did you land on elementary's theme?

What was the, what were the major inspiration? It came to me. Honestly, the main theme just came to me, and I recorded it with my mouth to remember it. And then I was like, I don't know how to play specific notes on any instrument other than the baritone. and so I guess I should just stick with this

so then I laid down the bass and the horns it's all about that bass and the thank you Papa and then the drums and then it was like perfect you know what I mean so I was like music baby that's music that's just you put them together and and just believe you need to answer that question

nobody wants me to try to make music for anything that is not hey that's not I got a lot of skills people I got a lot of skills that ain't stop me I just kind of went with it. It was really hard to find a sound for all the arcs, really. Amnesty was maybe a little bit easier because I had the, like, I knew, I'd known for so long, like, what that show was going to be.

And so it was a little bit easier. But, like, dust, writing kind of a darker Western theme took me forever. And then writing commitment, I like the theme that we have for commitment, but I don't think it was necessarily what fit the best for the genre. and I don't necessarily think it's what maybe dad even had in mind for the genre. It is really, really, dad, I love you, dad. This is not me knocking you, but you texted me one day saying, could you write me like a John Williams-esque sort of music stinger to include it? And I was like, yeah, dad, I'll just, I have no idea really how to compose like orchestral music at all.

And that's kind of what these themes are. And so doing like a, you know, brass-focused orchestral theme for the show, it took me, you know, the whole break that we had between balance and commitment, I was working on the theme for commitment. And I'm still just kind of okay with how it turned out. It was really hard. Well, I got a drop mix game. So that's how I'm going to be composing music. Perfect. Perfect.

Will the story of season two take off right where the introduction story ended? That's from Paul. Yes. Cool. Did you guys debate a lot on the choosing of season two? Did you consider doing any of the other arcs besides Amnesty for season two? And Griffin, are you excited to be a DM, I guess GM now technically? That's actually three questions. Emily, you got three at Emily. Let me answer real quick as from the point of view of dust. Writing a mystery with different sections and I would, I will continue dust as like a mystery procedural is not so. something I could do consistently every two weeks for any length of time. Like it was even just doing it for four weeks was pretty nerve-wracking for me because like running into one having to think of the stuff ahead of time know how everyone was connected, what piece of information everybody knew where they could be found, what time they would be

awake, when they could give the piece of information, who they would give the piece of information to, and not revealing so much information that it was super obvious what was going on, but revealing enough information that when it was revealed, you could kind of say like, oh, I could see, right? Like, that is not, I could not maintain that consistently week after week. Well, it's not just, it's not just that the conversation that we had, and let's just be completely fucking transparent here. After we had finished amnesty, we all had a conversation about let's do, let's do that.

Because that was, we had so much fun and it was the first time, there was so much fear that after we finished balance, that we would never be able to do anything that felt similar to balance ever, ever again. There was so much, so much anxiety around, around that conversation. And then when we finished Amnesty,

we all kind of felt like, okay, that felt like the adventure zone. So let's do that. And then a couple episodes into dust, we were like, okay, wait,

this is really fucking good too. And we're really enjoying that. And the conversation that Travis had with us was that you didn't necessarily have a whole, like, campaign about like you didn't have a whole campaign and didn't know how to like really do a whole I could do many series of it you know what I mean like that's the thing but I didn't have an overarching like big bad or overarching like this is where I'm trying to get to with the story to save all no like I I like doing mini series of it and so that was really what it came down to

and we started talking about generating stuff for the off week is you know I set up at the end this one that the next one is them like going to you know crescent city and bringing back uh the blackwell daughter right but like that isn't to save the world or anything like i i just want to write that but it doesn't it doesn't have to be that yeah it doesn't have to be not every story has to be about saving the world that's the thing is like i want to write these like episodic encapsulations right and but i also need it took me like basically a year and a half to get to to know how this, and even that was like two weeks before we started Dust was like, oh, oh yeah, well, they have to do this. And so like, I don't know that I could generate it

consistently, you know what I mean? So I didn't want to. And plus, I love playing. I like being a PC. It was a conversation, though. There was, again, a very small number of people who, there was this sort of perception that like I strong armed everybody into doing my game and that was super that's like the reason that bums me out is because

that's not our fucking family dynamic like that's not that's and so when folks were saying stuff like that it bummed me out because it made me think that they thought that that was how our like family works and it's super not I think I mean if anybody strong armed it was me and I'll take sort of like

ownership of my role in that. Like I, uh, and I don't regret it, but my personal feeling was that, it, no matter how good the other arcs were,

I feel like we built the adventure zone with the dynamic of Griffin running it and the three of us playing. Yeah. And for me, it's not just about, you got to remember, y'all, it's like,

it's not just about one of us doing the story. It's about what that dynamic is. It is a very different dynamic of, like Travis running the game and the three of us playing. It's three different people playing the game. And that's a very different like game rules and storyline

aside. That's a very different dynamic which is something I didn't realize until we went into it. So like for me I was pushing from like I think from the like I think even before we did amnesty. And it worked out that like amnesty was good and it was a good rule set. But like I felt really strongly that when we were returned to a main season it should be

Griffin running it. because that was what we built balance on, and that felt like the permutation of the show that, like, we had worked for years to create. And so, yeah, like... That said, though, like, after Amnesty wraps up, which real quick, another question we got is, like, how long is it gonna go?

And the answer is not as long as balance, like probably half as long as balance. But still telling like a big, cool story, just not taking three years to do so. And we do the next experimental games. I think we're all going to be at a place of comfort that you would think we'd be there since doing this show since fucking 2014, where, like, I would love to play and not DM it. I would, I would, that's what Justin said is not indicative of, like, I'm always going to be the one running the game because I would fucking adore the chance. You ask if I'm excited to be DM.

And the answer is like, yes, because I'm excited to tell this story. but it is not a like, it ain't a fucking power trip thing as much as some people believe it. And I think the next time around, after this one, I'm going to be real ready. Yeah.

This is, after this one, I'm going to be like so ready. To GM, is that it? Yeah. To GM one of them, as they say. Just GM went out. You know, as they say,

um, hello, McElroy's. I have a question for Griffin and Travis, Clint two, but I believe he discussed this. in commitment. And also, Justin. What inspired the narratives of Amnesty and Dust?

And also, while I'm thinking about it, elementary thanks, Cherry Kay. And commitment. And commitment. Well, he already... Well, you were very forward about, like, what commitment was based on in the setup. We did, if you don't remember, we actually did one of these after we did commitment. Oh, that's

right. Yeah. So we've talked about a lot of this from the commitment perspective. So, hey, us three storytellers, what inspired sort of our stories. For dust, a lot of disparate element, one, and I've mentioned a lot as like procedurals. I really do love, like,

the cheesier, the better, like, psych and CSI and monk and, like, really cheesy, like, detective procedurals. I just enjoy those immensely. But I also really like westerns. I mean, my favorite movie is Blazing Saddles. So actually, Wilder is named after Gene Wilder, and I based him off of Anel Johnson,

the bartender in Rockridge. And so, like, a lot of, a lot of Blading Saddle showed up in there. But the number one inspiration was Romeo and Juliet. Wow. Yeah, that was kind of... Yeah, that makes that tracks. Yeah, so... And that came, actually,

fairly late. Like, it went through a lot of different iterations for me, but when I struck into, like, a Shakespearean dynamic in the town of, like, the families and, you know, the generational differences between the parents and the children and, like, that kind of thing. That's when it really all started to click for me. And one of the questions we got, I don't think we're going to be able to get to it, but somebody asked me, like, how old Anne is. And, like, it's interesting, right?

Because when I was thinking about these characters, all I thought about was there are a parent generation and an offspring generation and how different those interact with each other. Right. And so I don't really know that I have age. I mean, everyone's of age, whatever that means to you. I mean, 18 or older in my head. I had so much shit like backstory and relationships and, you know, all this stuff written for dust that I never got to. That's true of all of them. My biggest inspiration, I mean, in some part is the supernatural dramas like Supernatural and Buffy and stuff like that, but way bigger than that.

Like the original sort of inspiration was persona. This idea of living in a town that you try to flesh out as much as any other character, which is something I want to do more of with Kepler, but having sort of this secret adventure that nobody else knows about that is going on at, at night, right? Like the dark hour or the midnight channel and having this sort of like home base where everybody can just sort of be and have it be a nice place that you can hang out in while doing this sort of secret battle against the forces of darkness. Like I've always loved that shit. And so that's, that was the biggest inspiration.

And Justin, what was your inspiration for elementary? Oh, God. That's so many. Because she had Sherlock Holmes. Beyond the Pines. Call me by your name. Shape of Water. Spotlight.

Amadeus. Million dollar baby. Hurt Locker. Twelve years of slave. Are you just... Are you just running through your Netflix queue? Spotlight. I'm pretty sure he's looking at the best picture winners.

No, just... There's like so many different, like, influences. It's, like, hard to... No, I said I was going to do the greatest... detective story ever and I did this story about the greatest detective ever so I fucking completed my mission accomplished mission accomplished um I start to get panicky it starts to like actually make me kind of nauseous when we talk about the things we do for too long because I start to feel very navel-gazy oh I love it just like oh I it shows um uh how

as leading a game changed how you approach how you run your player characters and how you interact with the other players and the gym. No, it's a GM. That's from Connor. And the gym. And the gym. I can say, I can, I can answer this. I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna fuck with the DM and the GM.

Oh, I am. Well, that's good stuff. I absolutely should keep doing that. Because still, but not as much, not as much. The scene where Errol just wouldn't fucking go with Alison Blackwoods could talk to the Vanshee, that's, hey, why did the, why did we all start riffing after Griffin ringing the bell? it's because I was punishing Griffin for not just going.

That was a black one. One of the things that I am going to come away is not try to plan too much ahead. Because this is the thing that happens a lot where we finish a recording and then I spend the next two weeks thinking about the next thing I am going to do as my character is, right? But that's not really how the collaborative, like, storybuilding process works. So it's easier just to play in the moment rather than as the, as the, the player character try to think about like the next three scenes you want to do, you know? Let's move on.

This isn't a question from Katya who says, I have a very important question to Travis about Aubrey Little. Is she a lesbian? So when I talked about, so I based Aubrey on four people, right? She's named after Aubrey Plaza. And she like is pierced and tattooed like my friends, Verona, Tybee and. Kate, right? And so all four of those people are bisexual. And so it was just kind of in my head when I, it wasn't even really a decision that I made, but as I was picturing Aubrey and basing her

off of these four people, that she just like was bisexual. So to answer your question, Kaja, she is bisexual like all four of those people. Uh, here's a question from Trevor who says, I'm a big fan of regional storytelling and I was wondering, given that this arc is set in West Virginia, You see this season as an opportunity to tell stories about West Virginia in a positive light or at least not in a negative light. Yes. That's very important to me. I thought that would be very cool to, like, tell a story about people living in West Virginia. That is not the same fucking three stories that people have told about living in West Virginia over and over and over again.

What else is on here? This question is for Griffin. How did it feel to be hands off for the setup of the last battle in Amnesty? Are you nervous about this going forward? and that's from Roslyn. I'm not nervous. I thought that was great. And that's like one really cool thing about Monster of the Week

that I think it's going to continue to be very, very cool is that the final confrontation is at least how I led the game, not going to be something that I come up with at all. The whole battle of y'all being in a cave and doing the fire trap and all that stuff was completely not anything that I had. made up. And I thought that was really neat. And I think that you all, like, it's a cool way for you all to come up with, like, what the climactic moment of each arc is going to be. And so I'm super excited about that. Well, awesome. So we're going to wrap up. But first, I want to remind everybody one more time, it's the Max Fund Drive. And it's your opportunity to support the art and artists you love. If you go to maximum fun.org.org ford slash donate, you can become a member. And what that means is you pick. a monthly donation level that you're comfortable with. And here's the amazing thing. And it really,

oh, that sounds like such a gross sales pitch. But here's the thing I love the most about Max Fund. When you become a member and you make these pledges, it goes directly to the shows you listen to. You are asked, which shows do you listen to? And so a percentage, a small percentage goes to the overhead of Max Fund so they can pay their employees. But the rest goes directly to the artist you like. It's not like some, you know, amorphous blob of the money goes. in, you have no idea where it goes, we have been able to, you know, focus on adventure zone and put as much work into it as we do because we know directly how many people care about it and we know what it means to y'all and how much you support it. And so it's an amazing system. I love the Max Fun Drive and I love the maximum fun structure. And it means the world to us.

And so... And we should also mention, like, this kind of a weird year for us at the Adventure Zone doing the Max Fun Drive, because we're about to... We're not doing the same show we've done for the past couple Max Fun Drives. And so, like, I don't know. Your support, I feel like now more than ever would mean the world to us and, you know, is a way of saying, like, we're supportive of the thing that you're making whatever shape it takes. If you, again, if you have the means, we really appreciate it. it's maximum fun.org slash donate. Is the link you can go to.

Go do it now. And thank you all very, very much. Listen, I'm just going to say it because you guys won't. If you all don't keep supporting us, our dad has to go back to work. And listen, y'all. Yeah, I mean, I got to start getting up at 3.30 in the morning again. Please. That's assuming you'd be able to get your old job back.

There's no reason to think that's the thing. And he burned those dinks on his last day. Y'all have no idea. Hey, listen, did you ever see half-baked? Uh, it's good flick. Check it out. This has been Justin's cool flicks recommendations. It's a new segment on starting.

A new segment on the Adventure Zone every episode. Uh, so next week, the second week of the Max Fun Drive, we will be doing the next episode of the Adventure Zone Amnesty. Episode six, the first episode of a new arc. Um, I'm very excited for you all to see what, what nasty monster I have cooked up for you this time. Oh, that's not the pirate one then, right? We're not doing the pirates.

Not doing pirates. Uh, it is actually the monster. is two pirates. It's a new thing. Yeah, so that'll be next week. And then I think we'll actually also have another episode the week after that just to get us back on our biweekly schedule. And then from that point on, we're back to biweekly so that we can focus on making the show as good as we needed to be without suffering from sort of soul-crushing time management issues. Anything else here as we're sort of wrapping.

Again, like, thank you all so much for hanging with us during the experimental arts. I understand that that was a lot to ask from you, the listener, and we've groused a, you know, a little bit about some of the, again, very, very small minority of the response that we got. But it really, you all stuck with us during a period of this show that we were all very, very scared to enter into. And you all made it something that was not only like really, I think at the end of the day, pretty enjoyable for all of us, but as we were hoping, like really, really, really informative. about how to do this show better and make a show we want to make. I will also say, not to put to final point on it, but as we were finishing balance, we were really worried that like,

what if, you know, what if people just liked balance and then that was done? And so many of you have, like, come out to be like, I like this too. And it really does mean a lot, too, as it has been wonderfully supportive.

And we just appreciate, we appreciate it so much. Yeah, you can't put too fine a point on it. We got so much positive feedback about dust and amnesty and commitment and elementary. And constructive criticism. Like that was really helpful too. Yeah, we take that in and we really do.

It's extremely helpful. And I plan on going back to commitment. I got some stuff planned. Yeah, I didn't get as. Futures for all of them. I actually need more. Elementary. I didn't get a single critique.

So it's got to guess it's kind of perfect. All positive? Must have been. Yeah. All positive. Yeah. Which is wild. You all need to become a donor, if only to hear Justin's elementary episode.

It was the most fun we've ever had recording an episode, I feel like. Okay. All right. Let's wrap up. I thank you all so much next week. The, I guess, season premiere. That's a weird way of thinking about it since we already did five episodes. But April 12th.

That was a backdoor pilot. That was the backdoor pilot. And then literally the day after that, we're going to have a live. show in in Dallas and uh yeah i think that one's sold out but we're doing oh hey houston by the way this is a mim-b-bam show but like houston can you come to our show please step up please can you please buy some tickets we want to do more shows that aren't in like boston and new york and so and and san francisco and stuff so we need you Houston step up i don't know why travis hates boston san francisco so much i love those towns listen remember your hometown

young boy, Justin Macroy still loves those cities. Unlike Travis. And if we don't sell out Houston, if we don't sell out Houston, I'm going to have to go back to radio. There it is. Folks. So, you're here first. Okay, that's it. Macroyoshoshoes.com slash tours, if you want to see what the dates are and tickets.

And we're also doing a book tour for the graphic novel. And there's some tickets available for that, too. Again, all at Macquaryshows.com slash tours. And maximum fun.org. So donate is where you go to become a member of the network. And we'll see you next week. Bye. all.

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