The Adventure Zone - The The Adventure Zone Zone - MaxFunDrive 2017

Episode Date: March 30, 2017

Hey folks! In honor of the MaxFunDrive, we decided to put out an extra episode on the off week: It's another The The Adventure Zone Zone, the world's premiere The Adventure Zone fancast, hosted by the people who make The Adventure Zone. Listen in as we answer fan questions and talk about what's next after this campaign wraps up! 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

I guess I'll walk us in. Yeah. Um, yeah, do it. Wait, no, let Dad do it. All right. Dad's a radio guy. Yeah, Dad can do, though. Give us a nice cheesy.

Okay, you want a nice cheesy open? Yeah, okay. Hi, everybody, and welcome. We're back with another TTAZZZ. That's right. The Adventure Zone Zone, that's where the guys get together. Have a little confab answer your queries right here. The, the Adventure ZoneZone.

So take it away, fellas. I want to thank our father, uh, uh, who is cosplaying as every Simpsons character you've ever hated. You know, it's funny. Somebody asked us.

All together in one human. Somebody asked us why dad, uh, both his character in Adventures and Adventures in Adventures in Knights is kind of like sleazy. And it's like, oh, well, that's just our dad if you tell him. Do a voice. Sleasy guy.

Do a voice, dad. Okay. I could have done Casey case. You couldn't have actually. You have. Hey, everybody, welcome back to the Adventure Zone Zone. It's been a minute since you've been here, huh? Like a year, maybe?

This show within a show. A show within a show. What's the show on Twin Peaks called that everybody watches? Whatever, it could not be less important. Appointment to, oh, God. Yeah, shit, that's going to kill. I said that specifically to torment Justin for the next hour and 20 minutes, or however long we go here on D, the Adventure Zone zone.

Invitation to love. Inventation of love. We're going to answer. a bunch of questions that people sent in and talk about making the show. And I think it's maybe a little weird timing considering there's not that much left in this campaign. And maybe it made more sense to do this once everything was completely over because I imagine a lot of the questions I as the DM won't be able to answer because I still have a few tricks up my sleeve. I tried to be very careful. I want to say, I tried to be very careful. It's so funny to me that like when we

announced this, we were like, we won't be doing spoilers. The sheer number of people like, what's going to happen? Who dies? Who's going to die? Who's going to die? Right. Tell me all of them. I want a list of all the deaths. Safe to say that you had at least what, 20 responses? 20, 22. No, it was probably in the range of about 4,000. No exaggeration. It took me about three hours to go through the question. A lot of duplicates. But we tried to go through the questions and ones that we could actually answer without ruining too much. I will say there's some stuff in here that's probably going to touch on what's happened up till this point.

So if you want Carter to episode 59, this is just kind of a preemptive, like, we'll probably talk about stuff. We'll definitely talk about stuff. We'll definitely talk about stuff. Yeah, I think we're going to need to, like, unpack a lot of stuff that actually happened on episode 59 to sort of set up the next episode of the podcast. So if you haven't listened 59 yet, don't listen any further to this one until you go back and finish it seriously. And why haven't you? Yeah, it was a pretty good episode. Yeah, it was.

Should we get going? I don't know. I forget the format of this. Like, who asked. This is different. I think last year we asked each other, like, questions that we had. And this year we kind of put it up to the audience. So how about this?

Let's just all kind of take turns, grabbing questions, and asking each other. And I'll start off with this, because this is kind of a softball for Griffin. This is from Neil D. What's the production process like for an episode? How long does it take to put each one together? So we record usually a couple days before the episode goes up, and we go for what do you think? Like, I think most episodes are, like, on average, like, an hour 15 or something like that. Yeah, when are you recorded?

I should mention, just as a caveat, we haven't gone back and listened to the original the adventure zone. So in case we were doubling up on answers, a tough shit. Yeah, sorry. I cut a lot out when I edit, which I usually do the day or sometimes the night before, because my life is in shambles, and I cut, like, a lot of, I cut a lot of stuff out. like this is the most heavily edited thing I make. And so just like cutting down the recording to something that is listenable without like long, long pauses for rule checks and like decisions on what actions to take.

I cut like maybe a fifth or to a quarter out of the whole recording and that takes a really long time. And then I record the ad break and then I level eight that. Get that sounding good. I cut the intro. together, which can take a long time if I have to pull. For episode 59, I had to pull a clip from episode 28, I think, and like fucking finding that needle in a haystack took me a really long time. It was the clip of Johann talking about being, like, sad about the idea of being erased.

And so, like, that can take a while. And then music recording varies pretty wildly. I recorded the, I think the fastest I've ever done it was the Taz Knights bonus theme from this year, which I knocked out in like a half hour, um, mostly using like pre-made loops and garage band. If I lean on those, it's a faster process. Other songs like the, the chalice song took me fucking days to, to get that one going. Usually the music I have a bit longer lead up time. And then, um, cutting all of that stuff together can also take a really long time, just like mixing all of the different tracks and sounds and shit together, especially

like episode 59 had, I want to say like, 15 different music cues in it, and it took me, like, half a day to make that. So, like, some, some episodes take me days and days and days. It doesn't help that my brother Griffin refuses to break out of the 50 Shades of Grey-style relationship. He has with audacity. And will not free himself from its beautiful, fuzzy shackles. Audacity sucks, but, like, I've gotten to a point now where I've gotten pretty good at, like, doing it fast. Like, I just let me open your eyes to the power of I know.

So the answer to that question is, like, it takes a long time. I work harder on this than, like, anything. And it's just because, like, and I'm working harder and harder and harder. Like, the past couple, couple episodes, like, I have doubled the amount of production time that went into it. And I'll probably keep doing that to the point where, like, the very last episode of this campaign will probably take me, like, I will need all two weeks to, like, get it going because I want to stick the landing. Let me add something to this, too, that I think will also answer a lot of other questions. that we got in a kind of a roundabout way. Most of, if not all, I would say, of the editing that you do, Griffey, is to clean things up.

Yeah. And it's never, ever to change the story. That's one thing I, a lot of people ask about, like, did we know Griffin was going to do this? Or did we know? No, there really is none of that involved. Yeah. It's really making it up on the spot as we go along. not on Griffin's part but on ours.

And Griffin doesn't, is, it's anal about not letting us know what is coming. And so there's never any editing, I don't think, you know, to, to like change a story element or take something out. Yeah, like, yeah, I get what you're trying to say. There's no like me saying like, all right, Marl, do this. And then you do it and I erase my prompt or whatever. No, we don't, that doesn't happen. Well, that's for, that's one. of, one question of about 50. So we're on, we're averaging seven minutes per question.

All right. How about another one? Are you delete these as we read them, Treve? I'm marking them, so you'll see a bunch of dashes on each one we do. Cool. Okay. Um, I can I read this one from tickle pickle, disemone on Twitter? He says, how early in the campaign did you have the whole plot sorted out in your head properly? Uh, when did you start dropping hints? Um, and, uh, the, the answer to that one's kind of tough to come by, but like, I really did have most of the structure of the plot done by the end of Gerblins. Like I knew- Let me ask you this,

let me turn it a little bit. At what point in there, because we started, here there'd be Gerblins started with like the pre-written like box, you know, the red box campaign. Right. What was the first kind of divergence from like the pre-written where you're like, okay, this did it?

The lost minds of Fandelver, there, I followed, here's how we followed it. You go, you find the dead horses in the road. Yes. You go to the Gervlin Cave. Yes, you fight the bugbear. Yes, although like, I don't think the bugbear's name is Clark in the book. And I don't think you're supposed to like have tea with him and hang out.

And like, that's where things are like, oh, it's more fun if we do it this way. And then like you go to Fandlin, yes. And then like, like, I think we jumped straight to Wave Echo Cave after that. And that is the end of that book. And we skipped the middle 90% of that book where like you go and hang out with like an emerald dragonling. And like there's a big castle. Justin actually, okay, this is fun. When I was in Huntington, when we were all in Huntington for the TV show shoot,

Justin ran a game of D&D for the Smurals that I played along with. And you actually did some of the stuff in that book. Like we went to that castle. Yeah, it's fun. You missed all the good stuff. Well, yeah. But I mean, the thing is, like, I think by like episode three, I realized I wanted to get off the book. And so we jumped ahead to the end of the book, essentially.

Now, this is my question, though, Griffin. And this is something I've always kind of been curious about. What was your, like, plan when you started? Like, did you plan to just hop from, like, pre-written campaign to pre-written campaign? Or what was the... I don't think I had a plan. I think, because when we did the first episode, it was under the guise of you were on paternity leave. And so, like, this is a filler.

And we didn't even know this was going to be a podcast. So when we started, my mind was in this mode. of like, all right, well, let's just get an episode done so Juice can have a break. And I think that's been a detriment, I think, to the show, because there are, there, it's tough, like, going back and listening to those, that first arc. And, like, some of it have had to kind of try to work into the bigger campaign, but, like, I really didn't have that bigger campaign until after that first arc was over. And I think that did us maybe a little bit of a disservice, because it did take me a while

to start dropping hints, right? Like Crystal Kingdom is when I realized like I had the idea in mind for like what the structure the ark was beat. Crystal Kingdom was I started to do some fucking work to drop hints. That's where you guys did like the whole like Cosmoscope and learning about the idea of like other planes and this other maybe evil plane that was coming and like the red robe showing up and all that stuff started really hitting the pavement in Crystal Kingdom. Well, no, wait a minute though.

I'm going to call you on that because, you know, going back and adapting here there be gurblands for the, for the graphic novel. I've noticed a lot of things that either you were brilliant in adapting or you were brilliant in just, like there's a red robe in, you know, and you and us. And so, you know, but there are elements that I pick up all the time. I will leave notes for Callista our editor in the side that says, I swear to God, this was in the episode. Yeah.

Was that more you just going back and retconning or was it? No, that's one very specific example of like me dropping. I guess that was technically the first hint, although like that was like the first red robe we see, right? And the red robes are sort of integral to the secret plot that you all learned about in the last couple episodes. So yeah, I guess that was sort of the first hint. But really like the last thing I wanted was for like all of this stuff when it was revealed. yield for it to have no no hints leading up to it whatsoever like no like oh i i fucking hate it in um like video games like jrpgs where like you're playing it and then like the final like thing

happens and it's some big bad that you like it has never been referenced before you know what i mean and it's just like i'm the big evil uh uh force of force of evil that you didn't know about until just this moment and i'm the one you have to kill in order to win um I didn't want that to happen. Like, I wanted there to be some lead-ups. So there's stuff like the patches you first got during Crystal Kingdom as a candle nights present. That was a hint.

I tried to... Crystal Kingdom was like every episode I was trying to drop stuff on y'all that would set this up. So this next question is, I guess, ties into this because it's for Dad, but I think it's also from Griffin. And I think it's a good example of what Gerd's talk about as far as, like, the stuff from the first arc. And Ian asked, if Royal came from another set of planes, how could you have been related to Gundred Rockseeker? His blood opens the doors? I got a good, I got an answer for that, but it's not. But that's, that's, that, my answer for that sucks. And you'll learn about it in the next couple episodes, but it sucks. But that is, that's the kind of shit I'm talking about. Yes, I've set up this thing where, like, you guys are from another reality, right? You're from a, you're from another dimension or whatever. How can you have cousins in this?

this world and it's like, well, yep. You got, you got it. That doesn't bother the D.C. Multiverse. You got Superman's from Earth 1, 2, and 3, all living on Earth Prime. And they're still related to other people. I don't know if that's. That's what, no, I mean, it's, it's, they got me there. That's a good loophole.

Here's the thing, if you go back and you look for loopholes, and this is not a judgment. Like, yep, you got me. Fair play. Because that one, I realized like at like, fucking 1 a.m. One night. start like ah shit he can't have relatives here um there's gonna be stuff like that and that's what that's what i'm talking about that first dark i just didn't have it yet i didn't have i didn't know at that point i didn't really know that they were from this other reality and so like i would just say some shit

and i'm sure there's a lot of stuff like that and um i i regret that i'd say it's a bummer but um what can you what can you do pob but he's nerfic all right let me let me ask one can i ask one yes yeah i got one that i think all four of us can answer. And it's from frilly ice cream. Finally, I get to talk and not just eat chili. Frilly ice cream. You're eating chili during the last recording.

I'm on slow carb, baby. I only eat chili. That's a good life. That's good work if you can get it. How did the popularity of the podcast affect your outlook on the story and characters? When did you become invested yourselves? I'm curious to hear your boys' answers to this. That's a really good question.

I'll tell you when I became invested was after, okay, so I made taco and there was not a lot of elements to taco that I had figured out early. Well, because you and dad took the pre-gen character sheets that came with the starter kit and kind of put names on them and there's your guys. And some have argued that I decided to name him a taco. in the exact moment that I opened my mouth and said, Taco. You didn't? Some have argued that. I would argue that.

Historians have been told. Historians of fear us. And there was a period where I just made him dumb? Does I ever remember the period that made him like wicked stoop? Yeah, he was just a trash bag there for a bit. And I didn't, and I did that because I didn't think he was funny enough. So I thought it would be funny to make him dumb. And then, and it wasn't until I tried to do that that I started bumping up against like, oh, wait a minute.

Like, that's not right. Like, that's not who this character is and that's not who the person is. And so that made me feel ownership. The weird thing about the show getting bigger is that in a way, I feel like less ownership now. And like, in a good way, I think, in a healthy way. But like, I see all these different permutations of Taco. And he's like still a character I made up and that's cool. But I also think it's cool that other people have their own spin on Taco and their own sort of take on him.

And I think that's really neat. And I want to encourage that. I think that's, I used to irritate me, I think, from a consumer perspective. perspective when I would see creators do that. Like, I don't know, the decision is yours. It's up to you. But as a creator now, I find that really interesting. Like, I find it really cool to let that space exist.

I struggled with that for a bit because it felt to be, like, noncommittal about canonical look and design and aesthetic and all that, like felt, I don't know, fan servicey in a way, in a way that I think I kind of struggled with for just a little bit. but I kind of realize, like, I don't think it's us dodging some sort of essential question about what these characters look like. I think it is us actually, like, taking advantage of what is a pretty singular benefit to this being an audio-only medium. If this was any other kind of medium, like, we couldn't do that.

And I think it's important to me that this show has, like, good representation because I, that's important to me, and I know it's important to our listener. And I feel like, and I try to do that with the characters that, the NPCs that you'll come across. But like, I feel like this is a really cool way of doing that. Just saying like, whatever interpretation you have, like, go for it. And because this medium doesn't have like these canonical visual takes, then just let it ride. And nothing's, nothing is wrong. Everything is permitted.

Yeah. I hope this doesn't sound like a dodge because it's absolutely true. I don't picture anything when I picture Magnus. Like, I just don't think that way. Like, so, like, I see a lot of different. Well, think about it. You're seeing it from when I envision scenes that are happening. I'm seeing them from my perspective.

Yeah. Like, I'm seeing them from, I don't see Taco doing stuff. I'm envisioning myself looking at the stuff that is happening around. Yeah. It's like missed. You know what I mean? Like, I don't see my PC. And so, like, when I see, like, fan art and I see people's drawings, I'm like, yeah, that could be magnet. Like, yeah.

In a universe, that's Magnus. Like, yep. And so, like, I think we, it's just never for me, like, this is my. And so it's more like for me, one of the weirdest, as far as the popularity and, like, investment in the characters goes, one of the weirdest moments I ever had was I used to look through the Reddit. I don't anymore. Not because I begrudge anybody posting on Reddit. but it started to bleed into like decisions I made and I wanted to remove myself from that. But like after an episode went up, I saw somebody post the comment, that's not what Magnus would do about something I did as Magnus.

And I was like, wait, what? What do you mean? That's not what Magnus. What Magnus does is what Magnus would do. And it was like I could not pretzel my brain around it. And it was like, okay, to this person, this is what Magnus does. and anything that do... But the thing is, is, like, people don't work that way, like, in real life.

They're, like, it's not like, this person is good, and so they never mess up. They never do anything bad. Like, this is not... And so, like, when I first started making Magnus, it was pretty one-note, heroic meathead who rushes into things. And, like, somebody talked about, like, the rogue, like, that's very un-magnes-like that he would train in rogue. And it's like, yeah, but, like, after a while...

heat of just like rushing into things and almost dying. Like there's a certain amount of learning that comes from that. So characters grow and change. I think generally speaking, like the investment that you all sort of had, this is just my perspective as the DM, but I also think when the listeners became more invested in your characters, and this is definitely something that we need to take to heart whenever we do whatever the next thing is for the Adventure Zone,

that investment came when you all expanded. when the definition of your characters expanded beyond your Dungeons and Dragons character class. Because when we started, you were a wizard and you were a fighter and you were a cleric, and that was pretty much it. But like, I feel like your characters really took flight. And the show, frankly, like, got pretty good when you were the disgraced former TV chef and the carpenter, the carpenter who's, town and home was destroyed and the deadbeat dad who is a kind of a hippie cleric with shaken faith like that stuff that goes beyond you just playing your roles is when shit got really really good so no matter what we play next if we play like some you know fucking uh what like uh space game

like i don't want to you guys to just be like well i made an alien and i made a pilot and i made a gunfighter Like, I will say, Griffin, not to judge someone else's game, but if there's an RPG game where there's a class that's just alien, it's not, I don't know about that game. Yeah, it sounds like that. Yeah, there's, I will tell you, I will tell you a crystallizing moment for me. And, and it's, it's, it's not the joke you think I was going to make. I think, I think by the time we got to this moment, we knew something special was going on. And with my hand of God, I think Abraka, fuck you. Yeah.

was a turning point because that was one of the hardest I've ever laughed at anything we've done. Yeah. And it was that, I know that sounds strange, but to me, that was kind of a distillation about what was so special about what we were doing. That to me, that was a big, that was a big turning point. I did, I saved the show. Here's another question. Saved it from mediocrity. We would still be soldiering on me.

Sure. If not for me. Here's a question to me. Do you want me to ask it? Yes. Why don't you ask me that? And then I'll ask one of you guys. Which one is it?

This was from Taco's boyfriend, Goldcliff Trust, who says to Justin, how much satisfaction do you get from blindsiding Griffin with new spells? None. Next question. No. I mean, the very short answer is I want to do... Taco's life is dope and he does dope shit. that's fact and it there are a lot of spells every time i do a spell like that i it is a balance for me of

like doing some hard-ass stuff that is cool but also like i don't want to mess up the thing and as much as griffin says you can't mess it up you definitely can no you can super fuck it up defo def defo yes but he always tells us that like he'll figure it out but like i don't want to break his thing so like that's always the balance for me. It is in no way about blindsiding Griffin with spells. If anything, it is a professional and familial curiosity as to how he will course correct to what I am doing in any given situation. But it is never with the intent of take this Griffin because like we could do that.

Like there's a much notier version of that. Your first episode on the Moonbase is like, okay, I attack the director. Okay. That's it. Thanks for listening, everybody. Bye. Let's spin that into, there was a lot of people wanted to know, Griffin, if there were moments that were kind of fucked up of your planning based on stuff that we did. This ranges, the answer to this is, oh, yeah. I got, I, here's the thing, and I could spend a really long time talking about this, but like, the biggest thing I struggle with doing, being a DM and also being the DM of an actual play podcast. and those are two different jobs with two different sort of demands. And I think every DM has to make up this decision in their mind is how much control over the whole narrative, the macro narrative, do you give the players and how much do you keep for yourself? And I talked about in the last, the adventure zone zone about like how I try to give the micro like story over to you guys and like do whatever you want while still trying to keep my hand firmly on the wheel of the bigger picture.

And so, like, that gets me in trouble. Sometimes there are episodes, like, I think all the Lunar Interludes have been an example of this. We're just, like, I kind of need to take the wheel pretty much entirely because fucking episodes, this last lunar interlude, 58 and 59, I had a million threads that I had to pull together. And so that meant, like, I was talking a lot of the time. I saw some people say, like, well, geez, Griffin just gives the other boys a script if you're going to do that. which I don't appreciate necessarily because y'all still I still I feel like I still give you the opportunity to do your own stuff not only that like when you guys had this conversation about Magnus you shouldn't get back in your body I was like uh fuck that wasn't like I kind of

thought you would and then all of a sudden that next episode was completely different for what I thought it was going to be so like I don't think you're necessarily completely on rails but Griffin has never forbade us from doing anything no so if anything honestly one of the things is like it's a fit dn d is a very collaborative game in my experience and like if your dm and not to judge anybody's play style but if you feel like um uh the the host of one shot uh r pchee commented on like that i apparently said an episode like this is important to me so griffin like went along with it yeah and like that's how the game should work so like there's stuff that we've wanted to do and griffin says like, yep, but also simultaneously, like, we see, like, our DM is crafting a storyline.

Yeah. So why would we fuck with that just to fuck with it? Well, that's it. Here, let me give me an example of, like, this inaction, right? Then the beginning of, I guess, it would have been towards the end of 58, beginning of 59. Dad and I were in a scenario where, yeah, Travis knew. Travis had some idea. That made, and magnify all of it, like, multiply the complexity of all this, but,

a billion thanks to the fact that like I made it so that one of the characters knew kind of what was up and the other two didn't and I kind of like expected all of you to go along with it and you did not. Yeah, well we we said to Griffin and I don't know this probably wasn't in the episode but at one point we had to say to Griffin like listen we know we are headed towards something happening in the um in the in the moon base but like we don't we're not there like And we were not down with crossing going against the Bureau of Balance. We just had no, we didn't have the motivation yet. And we could feel the narrative wanting to go there.

But like we as as arbiters of our characters, like in order to be true to them, could not roleplay that. Yeah. Because it was like we just weren't there. Like we didn't have it. Which let me like, when I envision that sequence, like I just thought like, oh, well, if they're down, like there's, it's going to be this cool. sneaking mission. And that's not really how it approached. Also, like, you told me that, and I kind of tried to give you a little bit more justification with the, um, you hearing that voice, telling you to trust Barry, which, um, I don't know if I should say who that was, but I'm pretty sure everybody

gets it and, uh, giving you that stuff with Angus, who kind of like backed you up. Like, I was like, okay, well, I needed course correct and do a little bit more stuff. And also, you didn't take this scene the same way I thought you did. You fucking walk straight into and you're like, yo, director, what's up? Um, I, part of, part of me, like, thought you might just be like, like, if you had been like, hey, director, somebody's trying to cross you, we're not down with it. I would have had to figure out something on the spot and I would have freaked the fuck out, but I would have had to figure it out. Well, we wouldn't have turned on, this is the problem is we couldn't, and where we were sort of

had our hands tied is we also didn't want to leave. We couldn't have left Magnus. Sure, right. The problem is we didn't have time for literally an entire episode of talking about it between the three of us to try to figure out what was going on. And also, it didn't matter because we didn't have. all the, the clues.

Yeah. Right. And each arc really and truly is a whodunit for us. It may not be a murder, but there's always a mystery. Yeah, right. That we're trying to figure out as we go through it. I'll tell you, this kind of ties in with one of the things, and nobody asked this question, but one of the toughest things for me, and yet, one of my favorite things about

this story, these stories, are those jury will kindly disregard the witnesses' testimony. kind of things where not only there are moments where our characters are not supposed to know what the other characters know, but then we as the player are not supposed to know. But listen, that's a level of complexity that I think makes it special because it does make it harder. And it forces us to be better actors. I've been listening to a lot, and I talk about this a lot on Twitter, and I may have talked about it in the last the idea of convention.

interest zone zone but i listen a lot to a podcast called friends of the table that uh waypoints austin walker runs runs their game and they work in dramatic irony in a way that's just delectable and so like uh i think we i there's definitely been a lot more of that in the last few episodes of just like clint knows shit that merle can't and trying to play around that um as so often happens in friends at the table like is really really good shit well i i want to get back to one last thing about this subject because i mentioned this spectrum and There's been talk about, like, you guys fucking up my plans or whatever. And I think the reason you're thinking like that is because we've been doing this this way.

And I think it's the way that's worked for us in which, like, I am mostly guiding where the narrative goes and you all are reacting to it. But there is another way of doing it in which I say, you guys are at a bar and these people on the bar, what do you do? Episode one, that's it. And then you set fire to the bar. It's like, okay, well, I know what episode two is going to be. And I'm reacting to the things that you do. and I feel like that isn't the best way. That's just not the right way for us to do it, right?

Because I don't know, I, the DM, I, the person running the game. I don't know how to make a good story out of that. Because it's just, it's going to be a lot of cooks in the kitchen. And it's going to be like, unless we do all get together at that point and say like, all right, what are we doing with this thing? Then it's not going to be this cohesive narrative. It'll be you guys like being just murderous bandits as you like run across the countryside. Like, you know what I mean?

Like it's it's it's it's really and so I get really defensive about people saying like I wish Griffin would let the boys like make more of a like big decision because to answer the thing that we haven't even talked about which is the point of the question of like things you guys did the whole arms outstretched sequence where taco soul jars and you guys pull magnus from death I'm not kidding I had a whole thing in the astral plane gone like fucking gone that was probably the biggest most brutal thing. The Chalice episode, which I think is maybe the most important episode of the season, the series so far where we like finally get into your guys' backstories and then

the chalice tries to tempt you. I fully fucking thought that Magnus was going to take the offer and I had two episodes worth of stuff. No bullshit of like parallel worlds and alternate timelines and like dark, the darkest timeline style shit happening and you all trying to like pull Magnus from the brink or like I thought Magnus wasn't going to make it through 11th hour full stop but you didn't take the offer and so I was like okay walk away from that and then there's littler stuff like I mentioned in the last the adventure zone zone like I had a cool battle on top of the train that Magnus kind of did away with

with this wild acrobatic stunt um so like I I definitely take the reins in some episodes more than others when I need to like really get things tied down and tied back in because I'm trying to do kind of a complex thing and I don't want to let anything go unresolved. But at the same time, like, it is not you guys reading scripts. I have definitely tailored like the big picture stuff to like suit the things that I think you all are enthusiastic about, about your characters. And that's that's the way I try to justify it. So before we answer more questions,

The whole reason we're doing the Adventure Zone Zone is we are in the middle of the Max Fun Drive. And so let's talk a little bit about that. And we're going to fly through this and we'll get back to your questions. And then we'll do like a lightning around question section. So Maximum Fun is a listener supported network that means that we do some ads, but primarily the network and these shows exist because of listeners like you. So once a year, we do a two-week drive where we ask you to consider supporting the shows. and the artists that you love. We have a bunch of different levels

that you can give at. For $5 a month, there is something like 100 hours of bonus content that you get access to. There's, I DM'd a couple episodes of what we're calling

Adventure Zone Knights in a whole new world. Let's establish canon. Is it Knights with a K? It's Knights with an, like, it's a play on like Baywatch games. No, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know. But it's, this could also be a play

on a play on Knights. Okay, sure. Fuck it. Yeah. It's Avengers No Knights with a K. But it's also in a quantum state where if you've ever spelled it with an N, you were also correct. Retroactively. Which, by the way, Stephen, the Goldfish is also in a quantum state where it is

both with a V and with a pH depending on if I remember how I'm going to... It's an audio medium, folks. And Stephen's okay, right? Stephen's okay. Oh, we'll talk about that in a second. Don't get it twisted. But so for $5 a month, you get all that content and not just for Adventure Zone for all the other shows in the network and not just for

this year all the past years it's such a such a bargain um and in the adventure zone nights it's a whole new world with new characters the idm griffin griffin Justin Justin and dad plays new characters um Justin plays his uh troth and she's uh a monk teafling Griffin plays as an eldrich bartender named tom collins and dad plays as kind of a like a disgrace blackballed bard named Lenny Manlito. And because we've hit 10,000, there's going to be a part two to this year's Adventure Zone Nights coming out. Very shortly, we're recording that tomorrow.

But so that's at $5. At $10, you get the bonus content. By the time you're hearing this, we've already recorded it. That's true. Twist. So at $10 a month, you get access to all the bonus content. You also get your choice of an enamel pen. There's one for every show on the network.

And because we're past 10,000, if you are a $10 donor after the drive, you're going to be able to purchase more pins with the proceeds of that going to charity. So at $20 a month, you get a pen, you get the bonus content, you also get a keep in touch kit that has stationary. It's got a rocket pin with four colors in it. You get a candle, shaped like a rocket that smells like sharpen pencils and friendship. get a rocket stamp, basically anything you need to keep in touch. And then at $35 a month, you get the keep in touch kit, you get the pen, you get the bonus content, and you get some engraved beer mugs engraved with the Max Fun Rocket logo. But you know what, Trave, it's not really just about the gifts.

The gifts are nice, but what you're really doing is helping to make more stuff you like in the universe. This show exists because of the Max Fund Drive, and it gave us the freedom to be able to create it, and we wouldn't be doing it without it. So by voting with your dollars, by voting with your dollars, you are helping to ensure that we make more cool stuff, and that's really amazing.

We so appreciate your support and all of that. This show has grown a lot, and that means a lot to me. And like the Max Fund Drive is like, one way in addition to just like seeing how big and how passionate the community is that like inspires me to spend more time on it like I wouldn't spend a bunch of time writing music and doing all this do doing all this stuff and writing and pre-pro and stuff if like I didn't think there was a demand for if I didn't think that like people were going to get some level of enjoyment out of that so like this this show is what it is because of because of the

the max fun drive and because of the people. people who support it. So if you love Max Fun and you love Adventure Zone, please consider supporting. Go to maximum fun.org forward slash donate. Take a look at the different levels, see which one's right for you. And if you are already a donor, please consider upgrading because we count towards that. I think we're going to hit 20,000 by the end of the drive, but we can only do that with your help. So boys, I would like to rapid fire lightning around some questions at you, specific for each one of you. And we'll see if we can just knock out something. of these. Yeah, because we literally have a hundred or so on here still.

Can I do one first? Go for it. Dad, why does Merle not like Angus? Oh, actually, that was a very legitimate character choice, because I've always kind of played Magnus, I mean, played Merle as... See, I do it too. As a character who was really kind of insecure about his place on the team. He was never much of a team guy and saw anybody that joined the party with the party. with distrust. If you look back

even Killian coming on, anybody that came on... Wow, I never... Fuck, man. I made the choice that Merle would always feel so insecure that you know, what do they need him for? He's a failed cleric. He's short. 90% of the spells he casts

are failures. So anytime anybody came along with any level of competency, he saw that character as a threat to his position in the group. I feel bad for dumping on Merle in so many of the arcs, right? Like in Crystal Kingdom,

you were the one getting pursued because you had the highest death count and now Pan has abandoned you, but I promise that sweet, that sweet reward, I promise I have plans for all y'all boys. Sweet release of death. Sweet release of death.

Okay, so Griffin, who's your favorite and least favorite MPC to play as and or voice? My favorite is Angus, of course. Although I've gone back and listened and there's some pretty wide variations. The voice for Angus came from one of the, it was a super ego sketch, and it was the one where they're on the go, the, like one of the characters is on the train. Super Ego is another comedy podcast that's really good.

There's a sketch where like there's just a guy on a train and a bunch of weird folks come and talk to him. And one of them was a ghostly boy. I never knew that. Yeah. And he was, he was, what does he say? he just talks about being ethereal and uh won't you take my clammy dieff in his hand or something like that i'm straight just lifted that from that um although like now i just do it kind of a higher voice hi um and so i like i like angus my least favorite is just like any character that's like uh down here all like 12

of them i'm talking a low voice i'm either jenkins strictly based on voice not character i'm either jenkins or I'm Yoad or I'm any six characters. Like, yeah. I have like four voices that I try to do for everybody. Justin, this is from Rick Sinchez. Have Taco and Cravitz been on other dates other than the one on the show? Hmm. I mean, you would be on the, I mean.

A lot of people want to know this, Justin. They want to know more about the relationship between Kravitz and Tachos. But it is, I'm not being flippet. It's an essential, like, It's an essential disparate thing to me. Like, I don't, I don't know. It wasn't on this show. It's up to you.

Do you think they did? I don't know. My part is done. Like, I don't have to do more. I did my part of it by talking and recording it. Like, as far as I'm concerned, that's my contribution to that stuff. And I don't want to fill in the gray areas where other people can, like, hang out and do whatever. I would, I would say, I'm sure they, it's,

seemed like they had a fun time. Like, I guess. On the top of- They enjoyed each other's company, but like, I, I just don't want to, I really feel pretty strongly that, like, stuff that wasn't on the show, I'm not really interested in, in making, like, ruling statements on. Because, like, if I, you know, I want to leave flexibility for people. I just want to hop in here and say, like, the demand for Tuckett's content is, like,

yes, definitely, it's a lot, there's a lot, there's a lot of demand for Tuckett's content, and I do want to say if only fucking Magnus had not been pulled from the clutches of death we would have gotten a lot more Cravitz time but now this... Oh, thank you. See, now that you're dumping on me again.

No, no, no, this is... I mean, that was one of my fucking favorite things that you guys... You guys did a cooler thing there than I had envisioned. I'm just saying, like, I get a lot of tweets now. It's like, wow, Kravitz wasn't in this episode at all and you set up this, like, perilous situation.

It's like, I know Kravitz is a really great character, but like this is me trying to reverse engineer the stuff I was going to do in the in the the the astral plane like into the rest of the rest of the story so it's not me like if we hit if we hit 20,000 new and upgrading no stop no stop shut your mouth I will say I will say one more note about cravitz I know people really like the tawket's uh coupling and I'm I'm into it for sure I think the, if there is one reason, and I'm reading into this from Griffin, Griffin has not presented other opportunities for Taco and Private to interact, but I will say this. I have, is zero sweat off my brow to role play as a male fella and going on a date with another fella. I have zero issue with that whatsoever.

It is, however, exponentially more weird to go on imaginary dates with my brother. Yeah. It's like a lot weirder. I don't want to trivialize this, right? Because I know it's like, for a lot of people. No, no, no, no, I get it. I'm just saying, like, it's also the only date that's ever been on the show was the, I'm pretty sure, was the Kravitz's, like, the only romantic date.

Merle and the director of Spodding. I got some heat there. More of a hang sesh, but... No, no, I think it's pretty much a date. Okay. Yeah, because it's way less weird for dad to go on a date with Griffin. I don't want to trivial. I like that...

I like folks shipping our characters, right? Like, I'm into it. Except for Magnus. Magnus is only how one love. He's done with that. Yeah, he's Magnus. No, Stephen. Stephen.

How about another question? Well, hold on. So let me answer that question. So Stephen the goldfish Oh boy Anytime anything happens to Magnus Everyone is very concerned with Stephen Let me just say this right now

If anything were to ever happen to Stephen I would say it Everyone's very concerned That something tragic has happened to Stephen And we just failed to mention it Stephen is fine He will almost always be Like I can't imagine a scenario

In which the payoff is going to be Something bad happening to Stephen Stephen is fine. If not, if you have I heard otherwise, safe to assume Stephen is fine. And more importantly, there's going to be more cravets stuff real soon. I promise. Hang in, hang in there. Cravite heads. At Swift Martyrdom asked me, does Travis still have Magnus's old backstory written down somewhere? And if so, could we hear some of it? Here's the thing. I wrote that backstory like before we ever started playing. And once we actually started, this is this is the most like long form improv I've ever done like years long and so that backstory I don't think the backstory that you hear in the 11th hour arc more now like more accurately reflects Magnus than anything I wrote a while ago like it's it's two different characters at this point because the backstory I had was this really broken like bitter dude that had like seen some shit and was kind of forced into this heroic role and like it just it is no longer representative it was much more like mal reynolds um but without the humor yeah um and and the magnus you see now is much more like the humorous side it also it also it didn't fit the

not just magnus's character but it didn't fit the tone of the show like at all it was pitch fucking black it was it was done it was very dark. And I will say that the one huge element that carried over into both is Julia, as the wife. And a lot of people I saw talking about like, like, you know, women dying as part of the backstory. I will say for me, for me, it is maybe the most grounded character choice. I, like, as far as time, someone asks what's a thing that, like, I have the most, uh, what, Julia asked how appropriate. What's the biggest thing you and Magnus having in common. And the reason that I made the decision to have his wife passed away is, and might get a little serious here for a second, but for two reasons. One, our mom passed away

when I was 21, and it's like one of the most impactful moments in my life today. Like, it's like what shaped me to be the person I am and inspired me to like do more good with the time that I have left in the world. So like that was a big part of it. And then also my wife and being married. And my wife continuously inspires me to like constantly be, be a better person than I was before I met her. So like those two things is like what for me would make someone a hero? Like I kind of combined those elements in one. So like for me, everything that Magnus is is from that. Sure. I also like, I am also kind of like, hmm, I totally get these criticisms. And there's been a lot coming in,

uh, coming from, uh, stemming from, uh, episode 59 and some of the stuff that, that came in there about like, um,

uh, fridging, right, that concept, that trope of, of, of fridging women characters to inspire male heroism.

And, um, I, I, I definitely get that. And I think we've definitely stepped in it. I tried so like, I tried so hard to sidestep some bad tropes when like doing this show.

Like, It was important for me that there was never like a, you know, like a princess for you all to rescue. But I definitely fucked up in that like the bury your gaze trope with the, with the Ram and Raven, Hurley and Sloan at the end of the pedals to the metal arc, which because when I was writing that, I was like, oh, it's the first like romance in this show. And I'll give it a tragic ending without knowing that there was this whole fucking like, that's how most like gay and lesbian relationships in. media end is with tragic endings, which I didn't realize. And so like, I've, I've stepped in it a lot in that regards. And I think we've, I think we've probably also not done so great about avoiding, you know, women, women dying for dudes to have, like, the, the kickstart for their adventure. Like, we haven't done it a lot, but maybe a little bit more than I'm comfortable with,

which brings me to loop, which I'd like to just sort of clear the air about in the next two minutes, if you'll allow me. I had the idea for, Taco to have this twin that he couldn't remember. Everybody has things that they couldn't remember because of the void fish. And I had this idea for Taco to have this, this twin sister, Loop. And the question that we got probably most in this whole thing in prepping for this episode was is Luke's name actually Chalupa. And here's where I'm at. And about two years ago when I...

Let me clarify. ask her from this exact question as I was listening the episode and his exact answer to me was what does your heart tell you? Here's where I'm at. When Justin made taco, when, and I'm guessing here,

but I'm pretty sure when you came up with the name taco, it was just, isn't this a silly thing to name your fantasy wizard in our role-playing game? It was done out of like irreverent silliness, right? Yes. It was not, it was certain,

not. It's because naming anything like that is so whack. It's like, it's so lame because it doesn't exist. And it's just like, here, I'm Grindle Thorne Winstler. Yes. Like, fuck off. His name's Taco. Bramble pill. And at the time, like, Justin definitely was, what Justin definitely definitely, definitely wasn't doing. And I don't think there's been like much criticism to this, to this, um, point. Justin wasn't making a Latinx character and naming them after a Tex-Mex dinner food, right? That would be pretty. racist, pretty problematic. It was just, this is a silly name to name somebody. Okay, I, when I had this idea for a twin he could not remember, I followed the same naming convention and thought, well, of course, his twin would also be named after a Tex-Mex food. And so I came up with Chalupa and shortened it to Loop so that I, you know, could have a name that I could say that wouldn't give away the reveal. That also sounded like a cool, actual name, right? And Loop has been referenced, like a lot, pretty much most of the arcs, um, her name has been referenced. So fast forward to like now, and I think we're all a lot more cognizant about how people consume the show and how

people have head cannons for basically how every character looks. And we encourage that, right? Like, I encourage that. I think it's cool. I think it's the coolest thing about this podcast if I'm being frank. Um, and there are a lot of people now who have this head canon for Taco being a Latinx dude. Thereby, as an extension, his sibling would also be Latinx. And now all of a sudden, if that is

your headcanon, having two characters named Taco and Chalupa, who that's how you interpret them, that sucks, right? That's very, very, very problematic. And so now all of a sudden, I'm, I as just to be clear, doesn't suck

because they are Latino. No, no, no, no. It sucks because the naming. we're all fucking four white dudes and and that that I think is is pretty problematic if that's how you interpret those characters and it does create a sort of like Schrodinger's racism where if you interpret these characters as if you interpret these characters as Latinx then those names are problematic if you don't then it's just like oh what silly names I as the as the DM and the person who came up with the name for this other character um can't say like like, well, that's on you, if that's how you interpret them, and also say, like, I want everybody to interpret their characters however they want. You know what I mean? So, that being said, and I don't want folks who, like, there's been a huge amount of people who are like, oh, Chalupa, I figured out your name. Griffin, you've been setting up this joke for such a long time. And I think there's people who are like, you know, into the name because maybe they don't interpret those characters in the same way. And I don't want those characters. This is not a judgment on those people or anybody. It is just like my own certain of discomfort at this thing now based on how a lot of people, a lot of people, because a lot of people been reaching out, have interpreted it. So here's what's up. And I can make this decision because I can do whatever the fuck I want with the characters in this world or the world itself. Lou's name is just, I think, canonically, it's just going to be just Loop, right? That's what we've been calling her.

and I think that's like the best way to kind of move forward. I think, I think, no, I need to be a little bit more steadfast here. Spell it L-O-O-O-P. No, L-U-P. It's how we spelled it, and it's just, it's not short for anything. Loop's name is just, is just Loop. And that's the end of the story. Because there's so much more, there's more stuff I'm doing with Loop, like a lot,

a lot more stuff I'm doing with Loop. And I don't, I don't know. I don't want anybody to listen to this podcast and be, uncomfortable because of some racist undertones that were completely and totally unintentional. Like, I don't want, it is important for me that, that nobody sort of has that. And it's way more important to me than like landing some two-year-old stupid pun, right? Sudo-jude. Sudo kind of lazy joke.

Dad, I have a question here from Allison Wilgus says, has worked? working on the graphic novel script and revisiting early episodes while adapting them, affected how you feel about TAS as a player? Um, it, oh, as a player, it's made me appreciate a, Griffin's storytelling. Griffin's world building. Thanks, Daddy. Um, because really and truly by about the third or fourth story, it was obvious that, well even before that that you had gone off the rails and started working on your own thing

and it has it has affected me in the fact that it when I realize that it kind of made me realize that I had to up my game a little bit and it's sort of like what Justin touched on before you know we you know when people are asking about do we do things that push Griffin's buttons on purpose? Yeah, we do that. But do we do things to try to derail the story? No, we don't. And I'm being honest here.

I really think that we become actors. And I think we really try very hard to balance out like the riffs, you know, like the meta kind of stuff and the current references and the pop culture references with trying to be pure to a character. And honest to God, we really didn't have characters until, I think, like, the second arc, maybe the third arc. For me, a big moment was Merle getting his arm chopped off. It made me kind of realize that it was, you know, it was real. And, you know, this was kind of, you know, full-fledged character building. And, you know, that's informed a lot of the things that have happened since then. Merle's attitude towards

towards Magnus a little bit in kind of a fun way. But going back and redoing the graphic novel, I mean, adapting the graphic novel has just kind of reimpressed me all along because, man, I'm telling you, there's a lot of jokes, but there's a lot of heart. And I think that's what, that didn't start showing until later, I think. We had a few flashes of it early on. But I think that's when it became kind of special.

I think we didn't know that the show had the capability for that. Yeah. I agree. We didn't, it wasn't in our. It was a joke fest. Yeah. And we didn't know that it had like we didn't. It's like a car that flew all of a sudden.

It's like, wait a minute. That is such a good way of. Because I built. We grease ending it really bad. Like the ending of Greece is like, wait, what? Are they dead? What's going on? I see folks recommending the show to other folks on Twitter all the time.

And they say, like, you got to listen to this show. Like, the story goes to some places. And I see a lot of people say, like, it emotionally affects them. And, like, oh, man, I cried so much during this episode. And then somebody, and then I see somebody say, oh, I'm going to start listening to Adventure Zone. And then, like, a day later, it's like, I just hit this point in the Adventure Zone where one of them murdered somebody and asked why they got a boner. Like, are you sure this is the same one? I have a question here for all of you.

And it's from Lily Beside the Rocks who says, what are each of your feelings? favorite musical pieces Griffin is produced for the show. Hmm, yes. Tell. Hmm. I will say, what are they?

Um, I really, really like, um, I just like the whole soundscape of the, uh, of pedals to the metal. But for me, I just really love the, the music Griffin made for this year's bonus, Adventure Zone Knights. I know you said you cranked out in 30 minutes. No, it rocks. It's just really good. Um, I like the Crystal Kingdom song, I think is the best.

I found it very very. very, like, to hear it later, I found it, I found it very, like, chilling. You got a lot of ASMR, like, stuff going on, and so I made that, you know, I thought that might be. My brother can't get me ASMR. I'm a normal person. Okay. Like, that's what you feel is. I am immune to your, your ASMR charms.

Arms outstretched. Oh. I think the music that, that you had in there. Well, that was pretty cool. Thank you. I, I, I ask this to you guys as a joke. You don't get to talk. We talked about your stuff.

Let Griffin talk about the favorite piece of music that he's written. No. For himself. I wanted to say for one of the, like, most interesting things about doing the music is I did like a mostly like Western sort of acoustic soundtrack for the 11th hour, right? And I got a lot of people saying like, wow, it's cool. You're sampling Bastion, which is a really fucking great, um, uh, what would you say like twin stick RPG sort of thing? Maybe not twin stick. That's not the right word for it.

But, and a lot of people like, wow, you sampled Bastion a lot. And as that arc went on, it was more, more people were like, okay, why, you're sampling Bastion in like every song. And I realize it's because both me and the composer for the soundtrack for Bastion used, like, a bunch of SoundCloud or not SoundCloud, a garage band, which is the software I use, use the same, like, pool of loops. So this, I wanted to clear the air about that because I also saw a lot of questions about, like, me, me yonking Bastion stuff. And it's like, well, I promise, I wasn't like, oh, I'm going to take this from the Bastion soundtrack. It's just we took from the same pool of loops. Because there's stuff like slide guitars in Roswell's theme, like I don't own a slide guitar or know how to play it.

So I used loops, and it was just the same one that they used in Bastion. We had a question from Felix, and I think we can answer this pretty quick. Any chance we can see y'all playing some female or gender non-conforming characters in future iterations of Taz. And I do want to say, if you haven't listened to the Adventure Zone nights yet, you should. Justin plays as a teafling monk who I believe identified. as female. Troth.

Yes, Troth kicks ass. I think this is important, right? Like, I talked about, like, I want there to be a good representation on this show. And I just would want to make sure that, like, I want to make sure we do a good job of it if we do it as player characters. Like, I'm not, like, I wouldn't be afraid, right, to play a woman or a non-binary or non-gender-conforming character. I just would want to make sure that, like, I don't know, that I did a good job and I didn't fall into any pitfalls. Remember we just talked about how we made one stupid naming decision. and it haunted us for the laugh here.

It's like, it's hard, y'all. It's hard, but to answer your question, yes. Yeah, we'll do it. We want to make great interesting characters. And like, so the answer is yes, but I don't ever want to do it as a stunt. I don't ever want to do it because like, hey, hey, fandom, do you like this? I always want it to be because it's the right thing for the character, the right thing for the story. And the right thing for us in the audience, you know what I mean?

Yeah. It's true. It is a tricky balance. but it's something that we'll definitely focus on. I have a question for you that a lot of people ask that I don't know the answer to, which is you talk about in episode 59, well, two questions. One, so Magnus has the new body, right? Yeah.

And the physical stuff that he lost during Wonderland. Oh, does he remember Kalen? Yeah. No, no, no, no. So the way that I kind of thought about this, and you all, this is what fucked me up when you guys were like, oh, don't get back in your body, you'll forget everything, is we were kind of thinking about it a different way, and that I was thinking that, like, your memories

and the things that you remembered kind of resided in your spirit or whatever that was inside of the mannequin. And so when it was outside of your body, you were technically dead, and so the void fish shouldn't work on you, and that's where you're remembering those visions and all that shit.

But, like, I think your memory lived in your spirit, so when it got back in your body, just because your body was from a time before Wonderland, like, your brain would still remember, Kaelan, that's not really how I think about it. And frankly, like, that moment was too cool to take away. So, like, no, Magnus doesn't remember Kalin. Because I do kind of like this idea of Merle and Taco having to go on this vengeance quest for this dude they've never met before.

That we may not, which may not happen, but just like, I'm not going to take that away. I'm going to call it right. I'm going to call it right now. We're going to have, at some point, we're going to do a live show. And it's going to be a two-night hunt the hunt for Governor Kaline. I'll play us Kalin. Stunt Spectat. That's excellent.

spectacular. Like a Rogue 1 spin-off. Okay. And for those, for those of you asking, K-A-L-E-N-K-K-L-E-N-K-K-L-E-N. It's not, I don't think you meant to do it like Kaelin,

like Elliot Kaelin from... No, he's named after Elliot Kaelin. He is named after Elliot Kaelin. It's just spelled differently. Oh, great. Um, Hey, folks. Sorry,

there was one other important question, Griffin. Why was Garfield growing Magnus's body? And I will never, I will take that to my fucking grave. I do want to say, But there is a reason. When we did the Intera Bang live show here in Cincinnati in February, someone came up to me and was talking to me about Adventure Zone.

And this was after Magnus was in the mannequin. And they said, you know, Garfield has been collecting these things. Maybe he's growing a body. And I was like, holy shit, that's amazing. And I said, if that turns out to be the case, I'll remember and thank you. And I cannot remember his name. Oops. And so I am saying now, I was inspired to, like, pursue that.

That was a joint collabo. If you're listening, please tell me it was you so I can thank you officially. I'll never say. I think it's too, like, Garfield is such a nebulous, fascinating character to me. And so much so that people do not know if he is a cat or not. And so. But that's another great example of a character that was like, was a punchline. and then just by necessity

we started to hang other things on. But that's the adventure zone. That's like why Davenport is the captain of fantasy NASA apparently. Like that's what I've kind of been. That's been the big payoff. That's why Barry Blue Jeans is fucking alive again. Like, yeah, that's, and I don't do that stuff purely as jokes or whatever,

but it's certainly a benefit. But like, no, I'm not going to tell you why Garfield was growing an extra Magnus body. He was a fairly evil warlock, mercantile warlock guys so like maybe figure it out but like i i to me leaving that a mystery is fucking hysterical and i'll i'll never ever ever ever say all right um we're gonna we're gonna talk about the future of taz but real quick i want to we want to make one last push for the max fun drive maximum fund dot org for it slash donate is the is the address you can go to um and if you

enjoy this show and i know a lot of you do um um It would really mean the world if you could kick in just five bucks a month. If you like this show and you want to help keep this and like other stuff we do rolling and make it easier for us to make this stuff consistently, it really is the best way to do it. We only do this once a year and we come to you and say, hey, please, if you can help out, if you can, if we all pitch in a little bit, then it makes it so much easier and it lets us create. stuff. And it really, it means a lot. For just five bucks a month, you're going to get days upon days of bonus content. If you can kick it's $10 a month, you get all that plus a pin based on whatever show

that you like the best. For $20 a month, you get the pin, you get the bonus content, and you get a really cool keep in touch kit with all the subscribers listed before. But really, it's just the act of, like, you. This network isn't founded on a few $100 to $200 a month donors. We certainly appreciate the people who are able to do that. But what it is built on and the strength of this network is the multitudes of $5 and $10 and $20 donors. Like that is what, and $35 donors, like that is what the network is founded on.

And it really is thanks to you that we're able to make the stuff that we make. And we appreciate it so much. And if you haven't taken the time to, and, you know, we're down to the final days of the drive. So please, please, please, please, please, maximum of fun.org for it slash donate. And kick us a few bucks. It really, really would mean the world. Yeah, I don't, I don't really know what else to say. The support the show has gotten has changed my life.

And it's, this is like the first piece of fiction that I've ever done. that like all of us collaboratively have ever done. And the response to it has been incredible and the support that we got in the last couple Max Fund drives has been like overwhelming. And just thank you so much. If you enjoy the show and you spend time with it and you have the means, just think about donating. Maximilfund.org for it slash donate.

Alley, you, there it was. There was that slam dunk. Let's talk about what's next. Because I can say, we're going to end the show. Bye. Bye. No, we. tell them you're joking, Trav.

Oh, I'm sure. Thank you for all your support. It really means, but two more episodes, and we're out. Then we're out. We'll take them money and run. No, no, no, no. So next in Adventure Zone is going to be a sort of special thing for, like in this campaign, it's going to be kind of a special thing that gets into the, what I referenced at the end

the last episode, the Stolen Century, is going to be the name of it, and we're going to dive in. And we're going to answer. basically every question up to this point. And my hope is that... Except about Garfield. Except about Garfield and his purposes. And my hope is that by the end of that, we will basically be at the starting line of the finale, which will definitely, definitely take more than one episode to get through.

So that's sort of the roadmap for the rest of this campaign. The Balance arc. The Balance. The Bureau of Balance Grand Relic saga. The Grand Relic... It's called the Balance. It's called the balance art. We can't with a whole kitchy name for it.

Balance art. Balance. Okay. After that, we're going to be transparent here because we've kind of struggled with this a lot. Because this show does have a pretty big following now and a very passionate following. And we struggle with this idea of doing something new and pulling the rug out from under people. And the transition, no matter what we do, moving from this thing that a lot of, of people are really, really passionate about to something new, even if that new thing is great

or better, it will be a rough transition. And so we've struggled a lot with, like, the best way to do it, a way that will make the transition easiest for the listeners, but also will result in us starting in on the coolest and best imaginable thing that we could do next. And let me also say this, just because I think this is, maybe this goes without saying, But I do want to just reiterate, no matter what we do after this, it does not erase the like 60 some 70 possibly episodes of the balance arc. Like that will be a thing that exists. You know what I mean? It will always be there for you to go back to.

My desire to wrap up this arc and have it be done is, well, twofold. First of all, I think it would be, I think we'd eventually, it would be shitty eventually. Like, eventually if we kept doing Taco Merlin Magnus, it would be. it would be bad. I need to, I need, like, we need to be able to, to close this thing out. But also, like, I love the idea of just, like, closing it out. And there it is. It's done. This thing that the four of us made over the course of almost three years that, like, we can all be really proud of. Here it is. It's done. It's got a nice little bow on it. There it is. That's it. So next, what we're doing next, I will say we don't have set in stone. Some, some, I think we're just going to try some stuff out for a little while.

Travis has sort of brought up the idea of like doing some mini, many stuff, some one shots, which will take a little while. What I suggest to was like, you know, we've talked about it before of like us all taking turns, you know, GMing something. And so like different mechanics, different settings, different stories, you know, one or two episode arcs of just like, here's what Justin's vision of this would be. Here's what Dad's vision. Here's what mine.

That kind of thing. Where we try different stuff out, instead of just trying to jump headfirst into like another big arc, having little, you know, little excursions into different worlds. Until we find what the next thing is, like what the next thing that makes sense. I have a few ideas. And then once we get like, once we find our footing and we feel really confident about it and think we have something that folks are really going to like, then we start in on the next big arc.

And I think the next big arc probably won't be as long as balance. It's not going to be two and a half years. I hope. I think that we made a tactical error, not a tactical error, but it's like figuring out to go along. This show was always intended, well, not always intended, it wasn't always intended to be fucking anything. Right.

But to be a consistently produced thing, this show needed to be able to evolve, but beyond individual storylines and individual specific games. Yeah. And it will do that. We're still going to be telling stories and hopefully we'll be better at it. We'll be way better at it. Yeah. Then trying to back into it.

Dad, you're looking at me furtively. No, no, no. I don't know what the word furtive means, but you're just looking at me. Not what you thought. I am. I was wondering if you had some thoughts. I was just going to say that, you know, Merle Taco Magnus and everyone. You're from the DM will continue in other forms.

So we've got the graphic novel that's going to be coming out. Yes. We have the bed sheet sets that we're working on. Well, the big thing, the big thing that's going to be... Face balls the cereal. Space balls, the toilet room. The big thing that's going to be germane to you, the listener, is one thing we've talked about is just live shows. Still going to be, because I don't know what the...

We don't know what the next shit's going to be. And so the idea of just like once Trace Horny Boy's thing is over, I don't know if the next thing is going to be good for live shows. This thing, this thing is, but we don't know. But this is one way that we can keep their things. thing going with little side stories and stuff like that. So I think, yeah, live shows, well, we can still do, we can still do balance. One thing that I kind of want to do is move away from D&D, which I think is, I know there's a lot of folks who play a lot of tabletop games who are kind of hard on D&D, like very negative

about it. I still think it's a great game. I just don't know that it's suited for our purposes really well, like case in point. If you're a magic user, there's almost always a billion things you can do. And so most of the stuff I edit out of the show is dad or Justin. And this is not a knock against them because if we were just playing around the table, it would not be a big deal. But because it's an audio medium where there's other people listening, it is a big deal.

Like trying to figure out what to do next because they have this huge multitude of options. And so like I want to move to something that's more rules light and more. And not to say that D&D can't be a narrative heavy game, but something that is sort of more designed around that. I'm going to reference. And we've already been playing this version of D&D as rules light as we possibly exclude. And I get a lot of flack from people just like, well, that's not how that works. There's a lot of people who are very angry that I say the word bluff check instead of deception check.

And it's, first of all, I'm sorry. That's what they called in fourth edition. Get out of my butt. But like I just, I feel like something that is more rules light where you guys can do things and interpret them using a smaller set of rules will be like way, way better for this. And it may actually make us adhere more. Yeah, sure. There is that, like, issue of slippage where, you know, I'm not going to talk about the material. I referenced, I referenced material components for my spells once when it was, like, a cool thing to do.

And that was that. I'm going to reference friends to the- I'm going to reference friends at the table here again, because they, um, they use rule systems, uh, that are, it's a system kind of like how, uh, D&D is a part of the D20 system. There's a system called, uh, powered by the apocalypse that I really like. It's all like you just roll two D6 and that determines fucking everything. And there are hundreds and hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of games covering hundreds of different genres that like I'm looking at that. Like I think that could be, I don't want to chomp their flavor. But like I think that is it's just better.

Like it's a better, it is a better like format for a narrative heavy like game light actual play podcast. And I don't want to like, I think I think critical role plays. either D&D or Pathfinder Like I'm not dragging like actual play shows that do D&D because they're fucking super super good I just think as the more we go along the more D&D stuff I ignore And I don't know that we're doing ourselves a But let's let's be honest that we'll always have a debt to D&D Yeah for that's what started tabs

I think it's a good first game to play definitely and it's good for it's a fun game to play like as a game Like a tabletop game it's just like it's not I don't think so suited to the way that we do the radio show. And I also think it's, it's, I think it's like just like these characters, just like Griffin said at the beginning, if we kept playing D&D, there's other options out there. And like, this is our D&D arc with Morrill Magnus and Taco. So I mean, like that's specific. Do we want to toss out? Yeah. So a couple of the genre ideas we've had. Yeah. So I, I, Dad, won't you tell them yours because I'm, I've been, I'm excited about it. Well, I've got an idea to do a superhero story. And it's a, it's actually the basic framework of the story is based on a

comic book premise that I sold years and years and years ago that just never came to print. And I'm, is it freejack? Really, uh, no. Can I say that? It's not the three, it's not the three ninjas kick back either. Did you ghost write both of those? I didn't illustrate any of my road. Ghost strike. Ghost right. I did. No, I didn't ghost right. I actually got credit. I thought you ghostedroat freejack. The first issue with Chuck Dix. This is so not what this is about. All right, fine.

But anyway, I'm looking at a superhero setting. And just that's kind of the idea I've been kicking around. I've got it from. Yeah, go ahead. And I'm kind of looking at it's inspired by the 11th hour. I would like to do kind of like an Old West RPG and kind of focus on more on like an Old West, like actual, you know, real world Old West setting. so I'm going to try to find a mechanic that works for that and write a story. People have asked about Adventure Zone Knights if that would expand.

I think that would be tricky because there's so much info that exists for donors only. But also, like, I just didn't, I didn't create it for an arc. I created it for, like, one-off stories. So, um, I have an idea for a, um, like a persona and Buffy inspired, um, RPG about, uh, like, um, uh, sort of unsuccessful. West Virginia ski resort town that monsters start attacking. And I also have an idea for a cowboy bebop and Battlestar Galactica inspired like post-apocalyptic, hip, jazzy space opera. I have an idea that it is like a Sherlock Holmes and we're all Sherlock Holmes's and we find

different clues that are better than the other ones. And it's like, but wait, you miss this. And that's like the whole thing is like four super smart Sherlock. And also one of us is a vampire, but are we good enough detectives to figure out? Oh, shit. It is? Yeah. I don't know if you're joking, but I want to play that super bad.

I'm obviously joking. We need to wrap up so bad. Keep your feet on the ground. No, hold on. I don't know. We can't say some stuff. We can't just say the fucking outro. So as is clear, we are still kind of like nailing it down, but that's,

gives you kind of a basic idea. The show will not stop when the arc is done. It's too much fun. And there will be some like, you know, finding our feet and everything. And once again, as has been up to this point, the deal with Adventure Zone, audience feedback and you guys buying in is going to kind of shape the way it goes. But that's where we're at. But to be clear that we didn't mention those to like put it, this is not up for a vote. We'll pick something that works and do it. But we of course want to hear from you after we're making the things. And again, it's a biweekly show. So it's going to take a it's probably going to take us a while before we get on to the next big, big arc, but I promise

you it's going to be fucking, I'm really looking forward to it. It is going to be so much fun to make new characters and explore new worlds and new genres and all that. Like, I think it's going to be, I think it's going to be incredible. And I think the next thing we do, like, I'm already, I'm already excited for it. So we hope you can get on board. And we love Merle, Magnus and Taco. We really and truly do. And we appreciate you loving them. But let me be the dad and let me just say, just trust us. It's going to be good. You trusted us before. You trusted us before. Keep trust in us. We also hope that you'll consider donating to the maximum fun drive maximum fun.org for it slash donate. Support the art and artist you love and then let us know.

But you've heard us talk enough about that. I think it's time for us to wrap up. I don't know how we end this, but thank you for listening. Thank you all for listening. Thank you to John Roger. No, thank you to Mort Garcin and just Mort Garcin for the use for a theme song Deja Vu off the album Ataraxia. That's it. Thanks for listen to The Adventure Zone, The Adventure Zone Zone, rather, and we'll be back with a new episode next Thursday,

which is April the 6th. And yeah, it's going to be big. Thanks for coming along. All right, dad. Now hit it. Okay. So keep it real, everybody. Thanks for being here.

Nope. Bye. Artist-owned. Listener-supported.