The Adventure Zone - The The Adventure Zone Zone: MaxFunDrive 2019 Special

Episode Date: March 28, 2019

We’re back with everyone’s favorite podcast-within-a-podcast-about-the-original-podcast, as hosted by the people in said podcast! We’re answering your questions about Amnesty, Live Shows and all the other pies we’ve stuck our fingers in over the years. 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

Welcome to the Adventure Zone Zone. I'm Justin McRoy. Here's our first question. Justin, will you eat more goulash during episodes? And the answer is, dear listener, you got it. Okay, I will also say, though, Justin, it's 3.15 p.m. It is 3.15. What meal slot are you hitting?

Yeah, where are you at? Let me see. Let me check the clock on the wall. It's tea. And the little hand is pointing to goulash. Oh, okay. And the big hand is pointing to gulash. Goulash.

It's a goulash clock. It's a Goulash drive. 2019. How much goulash can we get for the amount of money you donate? It's goulash. Wait a minute. The Adventure Zone Elementary, the Adventure Zone fur, the adventure zone goulog. That's this special one-off.

Justin, I know that you have enough professionalism and common sense not to eat the goulash while we're recording this episode where we ask people for money. But I would also suggest that the goulash, probably leaves a slight residue that affects the tones coming out of your mouth hole. And just make sure you give it like a nice sweep before you, before you start broadcasting there. That's my one. Of course.

Of course. Yeah, I'll be sure to once, yeah, if I happen to stop eating goulash at some point, I'll be sure to give a good rinse. Okay. Just to get all the goulash particular. So that Justin can slam jam that goulash on down, Griffin, why don't you tell us a little bit about the Max Fund Drive? Yeah, sure.

So we're a part of the maximum fun network, and we have been, well, TAS has been since its inception, but we have been a part of the network for, you know, in some way for eight years now. This is our eighth Max Fun Drive. We joined the network back in 2011. And because of that, we have been able to turn podcasting into our full-time careers. And we have been able to launch a bunch of other different shows. And we've been able to start touring and, you know, take time off from stuff. make the TV show and all of these different things have been possible because we've been able to

dedicate the time that we've been able to dedicate to these shows. And that is all because of the support that listeners have provided us over the years. I think it was so obvious for us to spin off our one D&D episode of Mobim Bam into Taz because there was a demand for it and then there was a ton of support for it in the Max Fun Drive. So that kind of like direct support that you can give us. and it is direct. When you go to maximum fund.org slash donate, you pick the shows that your money goes to and a small amount goes to max fund

to help cover overhead. It helps sort of put the things that you like into the world. And so we're going to talk a bit about it during this episode as we're also answering your questions about amnesty and live shows and whatever you asked questions about. So think about going to maximum fund.org slash donate. There's some great rewards that you can get

If you become a member, including the bonus content, you get it $5 a month, which for us this year includes honey heist or the Adventure Zone fur, as it has so been titled, which was a really fun thing to record. But we're going to talk more about the bonus stuff as soon as we, I don't know, after we answer a few questions. So who wants to rip one of these bad boys out here? What was that address? Well, it is. Yeah, it's maximum fun.org slash donate. I'll start with a fairly big one for Griffin. Griffin, how have your original ideas for amnesty changed since their first conception?

And that's from Tucker. Thank you, Tucker. Thank you, Tucker. I think I mentioned during like the experimental episode T-Tazs that we did about this being sort of persona influenced. And the persona games, if you've never played them, they're about like, you know, teens going into secret worlds and fighting the monsters there that are like influencing their stuff while also having all this day-to-day drama.

I don't necessarily know that amnesty is that necessarily. And in fact, I'd say that, like, what amnesty is now is kind of nothing like what I envisioned it would be. And I'm kind of, I'm happy about that because I don't think I had a great idea for what it was going to be beyond the pitch of, you know, West Virginia Ski Town with monsters in it. But I think it's turned into something kind of bigger than that. And honestly, for the last, like, a couple arcs,

I feel like it's been way more play-driven and way less, like, big, big picture. Like, where we are now is, I have no idea, like, I have no idea where we're going. I'm sure we'll get there. And I haven't had any idea for a while. So it's less like that the world has changed out of what I thought it was going to be before we started playing. And more that, like, the way we are, you know, doing storytelling has changed pretty drastically. Which I'd be curious to hear what the other three of you feel like, because it's definitely a different way of making donuts than we did with balance, it feels like.

I think that connects to another question, too, where Desperate DM asked, how do you write your notes for sessions, especially for parts where the players dictate how the game progresses. And I feel a lot like in Amnesty, we've had a lot more, like, where you have the, like, the monster and all of the, like, elements of that and all the pieces. but then what happens within those scenes and how we get to that and stuff, you tend to leave that a lot more open to what we decide to do with the characters and the scenes than you did when we were doing balance.

Yeah. And so it has been more of a lot more of like an open kind of open world kind of play, you know, where we have like created what shop we go to and a lot of the NPCs are based off of like scenes we want to do and that kind of thing. So it's been it's been a pretty different experience compared to balance. Yeah. And I also think that the fact that we we started doing it towards the end of balance, I'd say the last quarter of balance, but Amnesty really, really feels more character driven in the fact that I think that we are doing, we've been pretty consistent with trying to stay in character.

and try to drive the action that way, the choices we made and the things we've done, we, you know, and we will, you know, call each other on it occasionally if we veer from that. I think it's been much more character honest all through Amnesty. Which isn't to say that like the characters in balance were, were weak. No, no, no, that's what I mean.

I'm talking more about the way we play. I think that we have embraced it from the game. go with amnesty and it took us a while with balance. I think it's an interesting case study, like an interesting comparison because when we started doing balance, we had no idea who the characters were going to be. And then they turned into these characters that we all, you know, fell in love with by the end of it. And with Amnesty and really all the experimental arcs, we put in a lot more elbow grease ahead of time to try and like come up with who these characters were. And I still feel like it took us like a dozen episodes or more to like,

really start understanding who they were and start like having fun with them and start like knowing how they would react in all of these different situations. So I think we, I think we ended up kind of in the same place, even though I think we tried to put in a little bit more effort to, to inform who the characters were before we got started. You know, it's interesting. When we were creating characters, I'll speak for myself. When I was creating Taco for the Adventure zone, a lot of the taco, like, things that made up tacos as a character came from a disinterest in any sort of, like, consistency or continuity.

Like, we were all very just kind of pulling it out of our asses when we started. And I think that that actually made for more interesting characters. Because it was like, you know, very few people are deliberately created, you know, like almost nobody's deliberately created. And it is just, you know, the things that make up your personality or the things that happen to you. And I think that that lack of structure early on, like is what created a lot. And there's some stuff like blind alleys that we sort of tried for the characters that didn't work out. I think with amnesty, it was actually kind of a struggle at first to not care and not be precious.

Because like I was much more thinking about it and almost kind of like psyching myself out. like playing in a 30 episodes in headspace right from the beginning without having that sort of like groundwork and at the same time being much more conscious of choices that I was making because with the realization that like that that I was creating a character as I went you know what I mean like I was overthinking it yeah I I feel like next time we do this like I I think we might all take a step back from like trying to flesh out every not not every part of the characters right but like we I feel like we did maybe go a little bit hard a little bit hard in the paint on all the experimental arcs when like really the ethos of all of these apocalypse world games is to you know

draw maps but leave spaces and I don't I don't necessarily know that we left enough spaces which is I'm not slamming the characters or the arc because I'm genuinely happy with where it is now but but yeah it's been it's been, I don't know, it's been interesting. It's been very different from balance. What I have found too is like when I think about the differences between balance and amnesty, a lot of it has to do with genre, right? Because when you think about that balance kind of filled this, uh, the genre of like high fantasy epic, right? I would not call it high fantasy. Well, but I mean, like, if you're looking at what it's, you know, aping and what it's kind of like sort of like, where you have this, in the end, the world is like the entire universe.

the entire multiverse is at risk, right? And so, yeah, we had these three, like, duffuses that were, everything was kind of, like, happening around them, and they were just trying to, like, make it through, right? Whereas with Amnesty, you're looking at a monster of the week, and, you know, when you look at other monster of the week, like Supernatural and Buffy the Vampire Slayer and shows like that, a lot more of it is like, yeah, there's a monster,

and that's very important, and they have to find it, But really, you're watching the show for the characters and, like, their own, like, internal journeys and relationship journeys and all of that. And the monsters are kind of an excuse to keep the action moving. It's a more tension-driven experience than, like, an exploration, sort of wild, footloose, and fancy. Like, I don't know that we could do a scene in Amnesty where, you know, you're just chilling in a mud, bath with your boss. Like that, you do know what I mean? Like,

yeah, because there's a fucking warwolf out there that's trying to eat everything. And I just, I don't know, it is a different type of storytelling that I don't think any of us really appreciated. It would, it would be. I think we all thought like,

oh, well, now we know how to play RPGs. Let's, let's just do this monster one. But really, like, it's a different kind of story.

It's a different environment. It's different types of characters. It's a different sort of tone. Like, there's a lot of stuff that has been different with Amnesty. I got one. from Paul Zimandias. Clint is Saturday night dead and the kryptonomica based on Svenguli by any chance.

And if that isn't a primary influence for Ned's whole deal, what was? He feels very nostalgic in a way I can't put my finger on. It's because the guy playing him is old, hence the nostalgia. What? No. Here's the thing. While Svenguli is an. example of... Can you explain what that is?

Sven Gulli is a monster movie host on... I'm trying to remember which... I don't remember which network it's on, but he's still doing it today. And it's... Me TV is the network now. Okay.

Yeah. And it's... In a long tradition of a monster movie host like Zachary and Margus... Elvira. Elvira. Vampira, who... Elvira was a pastiche of. My favorite was Dr. Paul Bearer, not the one from wrestling. But it's, I mean, these used to be prevalent.

There used to be all kinds of these monster movie hosts. And there was always humor based around it and really cheap jokes and really. And the worst, the crummy or the movie, the better the show would be. And that, that's kind of where I was, was coming from that. I was, I am a fan of Sven Gouli. It's, it genuinely is while it's, you know, cheesy sets and everything else. It's pretty well written and he's really hysterically funny.

But yeah, I was going for that whole monster movie hosting vibe with the whole thing of Saturday Night Dead. Yes. Which is why I chose such horrible movies. This question is from Jesse. I remember a point when the new arc was starting where it was mentioned that commitment and dust would be revisited during live shows. Is that still planned? I would love to see those characters and stories come back. in some way.

Aw. Let's talk about live shows. Yeah. I know some of the questions have to do with live shows, which we've only been doing balance for. And we've been doing them every,

like, what? Every other month, every other tour or so that we do. We do a TAS balance. And did we say that we were going to do live commitment and dust? I remember saying

that we wanted to return to them in some way. I don't remember saying in a live environment, but maybe we did. That was such a long time ago. Well, it's all. On the internet, Griffin, so it must be true.

It probably is. So we just got back from the Joko Cruise, which was a hell of a lot of fun. And our like Adventure Zone offering for that cruise was a performance of five Sherlock Holmeses and a vampire with special guest Pat Rothfuss. And that was our first time doing a live show that wasn't balance. That was something else. And obviously it was, you know, it was elementary too, which is. The best, a really good game and a really incredible and rich, rich tapestry that was, that was woven. But it was a fucking, it was a lot of fun.

Like, it was very, very, very fun. And there is a certain, returning to the balance well as much as we do in those live shows has started to get kind of like, it's getting, it's getting trickier to like make something new in that, if that makes, if that makes sense, like something new that also works as a live show that, like, So like I'm I think it would be fun to do dust or commitment or anything it's something else like I don't know I mean we had so much fun doing honey heist like a one you know like doing a live honey or live you know maybe a live amnesty I don't know like something new or something weird who knows. I mean it's it's if we're being like we're being honest right there's no reason not to be like yeah we can edit it kind of we can edit we can always edit our honesty out. I mean part of it is like we when you. do a live show, you book a venue, right? And then that is predicated on selling a certain number of tickets.

And if you don't sell those tickets, then you lose money on the thing, right? So there's definitely a concern that, like, I think a lot of people, our suspicion, at least, has been that a lot of people who come to those shows are coming to see the balanced characters, right? But so that's part of it is like, we would have to be really clear up front. you know, that it was not a balance show, but also it would have to be like, I don't know what, like we'd have to choose a venue,

like guess how many seats. We don't have the data, right? Guess how many people would want to come? We have absolutely no idea. And that's really tough. It's really tough to do. And there's, but there is a sense that we were, we loved the way the, the world ended in the podcast.

We love the way where we left the characters. And, I mean, if we're being like super honest, there does start to come to a point, and I don't think we're quite there yet, but it comes to a point where you feel like you're a cover band.

You know, just like going out and playing. It makes you think of the parts in Galaxy Quest where they're like opening up the car dealership and they're like grab thars hammer. Like I said, not there. Yes. I cast zone of truth.

Yeah. On these deals. These deals can't be. The other thing is... These prices can't be... There's also an element of... It's been a long time since we... It's been a year and a half, right,

since we wrapped up balance. And even longer than that, right? God, when are we... I don't remember. Anyway. August 2017, right? 17? I think so.

And so, like, it's tough to remember a lot of stuff in the... But not... I remember most of this stuff, but also, like, D&D is kind of getting a little bit tough to play in a live environment. I remember the... When you take two months in between... When you take two months before touching it,

it can get a little bit rough. But also, like, Justin, we were talking after the New Orleans show where you were like, I don't... Taco, I think, is great at, like, doing stunts at each live show of doing, like, some wild thing that nobody expects. And it's like, you looking through your spellbook, like, I've kind of done all that. Like, I've done all the spells.

There's not that many spells that I have. And so, like, there's a mechanical thing that's... All this to say, I don't know. I think the future of live shows. The reason we're talking about this so much is like this is an extension of conversations like we have. All the time. Because we don't want it to get stale. Like if you're going to show up to and show up and support us, like we don't want to be like, okay, cool.

We're going to ramble off some character names that you like. And then, I don't know, bye. We want it to be good. That's not what we're doing. Like that I would not like sell any of the live shows we've done short by saying it's like that. But any step in that direction at all. all makes me super uncomfortable. And we want to stop doing those before we do the one where we're like, hey, we didn't do anything interesting that time.

But at the same time, like the Joko Cruise show was super fun. And it was, I think, more humor driven than gameplay driven, obviously, because we were playing five Sherlock Holmes's and a vampire. But also, like, we made a new thing. And the same with Honeyheist. Honeyheyes is a game about bears trying to steal honey from HoneyCon. And yet at the end of that, I was like, I feel good about the story we just told. So like I don't, you know, I'm not thinking of it as like a loss. I'm just thinking of it as like our views on the core podcast show that we're doing

because we've moved on from balance kind of starting to come like align with how we think about live shows too. Speaking of Honeyheist and Sherlock Holmes, Brian asks, where do you get those one-page RPGs like Sherlock Holmes and Vampire and the Bear Honey Ice game? Those sound like lots of fun. Trave, you came up with the idea to do Honey Heist. Yeah, so I mean, the thing is, is there are all of these, you know, Do they mean literally where do you get the files or like the idea of you find them? I torrent all of them off lime wire. I found it under a log in the woods.

I like watching a lot of like actual play podcast things and there's lots of like role playing game like streams and stuff on YouTube. I first became aware of honey heist from Critical Role doing Honey Heist. Yeah. But the internet is just full of one page, one shot RPGs. And like we just came upon when somebody tweeted at us a Carly Roy Jepson. Oh, yeah. One page RPG.

It will not surprise you to hear that I got sent that one a lot. I'm not even on Twitter anymore and I could feel the reverberations to the air surrounding my computer of people hitting me that. There's a lot of, like I would be. willing to bet that pretty much most genre you can think of, there's probably some kind of one page, one shot RPG for it. I just, I heard dad, when we started this call asking one of you, have you heard of this game, lasers and feelings? And I was like, how do you know about lasers and feelings?

I found it on Justin's printer. Oh, okay. Justin's doing pirated copies. That's dad's sort of discovery engine for these games. Well, I have another backdoor hack. Yeah. Have an uncomfortable moment on a beach where you interrupt Will Wheaton and his wife having a nice conversation to ask him for recommendations. Ah, that'll do it too.

That's really awesome. And hey, that's a good way to turn me into a ghost. So that's another cool way. I could just be a whole skeleton. Here's a question from Ashley. And I guess this is for Griffin and Justin. Was Minerva always going to die or did a bad vision or roll kill her? this is a wild question.

Don't know that Minerva is dead. Exactly. That's the first thing. And the other thing is that it's, I don't know, I don't think about this. You never, oh, that's right. You never saw. Oh, we can't conjure that into our show that is a safe space for friends. No, it's not like she was always going to, it's not like when I was writing the thesis of amnesty before we started.

It was like he's going to have this. a holographic alien friend who's going to train him until she gets, you know, her planet gets hit by a meteor. But like, that was part of the bad vision role, right? And because of that, like, I have to follow up with those hard roles. I have to follow up with those hard moves when you guys fail because that's, like, the big tool I have for, you know, shaping the story. If you think about it, like, when you guys roll well, you're in charge of where the story

goes. When you roll poorly, I'm in charge. And so, like, I can't, I can't just say, like, there's a meteor, and then there's not a meteor. Yeah, but you wouldn't have done it if it broke. Because that's the thing people always asked about during balance, too, is, like, a time when Justin and Travis and Clint broke the game. Like, that's not really how RPGs like this were. The way that it went was Justin rolled this role. I knew that the monster was going to be a thing that made bad things happen.

And when I thought about it, when you failed, a very bad thing that kind of, could happen is a meteor strike, right? An asteroid hitting the, hitting the planet. And then as like, I think after we finished that episode or so, I was like, oh, what about, you know, if it's not your guy's planet that gets hit? It was, this was not a thing that was always going to happen. These visions are like my favorite part of the game, trying to get to them, trying to, like, figure out a way to get to them, which is like, we have not even touched the vision that you

had for the arc that we are currently in where you saw Leo, you know, dead in your arms in front of the telescope. And like, how do we get there? How do we get you guys there? Does that even happen? Is there a way for you to change what happens? Like, that's, can you change them now that you are not the chosen one necessarily anymore? Like, that shit, I think is super cool.

On that note, too, we had a lot of questions about that, about the change to the mundane playbook. Was that, so basically people would like to know in general, is that something Justin expressed interest in? And so it worked out that way. or Justin, was it because of Minerva going away that you were like, oh, I'm going to do that? How did that decision come about? Yeah, which was the chicken and which was the egg?

Man, I'm trying to remember. A lot of this stuff is so collaborative. I definitely mentioned to Griffin something about how we were going to handle it. Like, was I, like, I don't know. Griffin, do you remember how it actually happened? Talk to, like, Duck's powers come through this, like, psychic tether or whatever that he had with, with Minerva through this wormhole in his brain from, like, across the galaxy or whatever, right? And so that was the source of his power.

And so, like, when Minerva's point of contact with Duck got shut off, like, I think we, Justin and I both were like, well, that's going to have some effect on Duck's powers. And I think we had a conversation about you wanting to adjust Duck's stats, like, wanting to change his thing. or when we were talking about how, that's what it was. When we were talking about leveling up, Doc, for the most recent, like, lunar interlude, you were trying to find some way to reflect the loss of power or something like that.

And then, like, I think I suggested, like, there's a whole character archetype that is. Oh, it was, it was take, one of the upgrades is you can take some in front of the playbook. So you were looking at it. And I was like, I should take something from the mundane playbook. And you're like, well, here's a different thing we can do. You can take everything from the mundane playbook.

And it's weird how that is probably one of the things we've gotten like the most negative feedback on. And it's like, my favorite things we've done. It's so interesting. Like, it's so much more interesting.

Like, why is that a negative? Like, how many times if you heard that story of like the chosen one who finds his destiny? It's much more interesting to me someone who chooses their destiny. Like, finally. embraces their destiny and then no longer has the powers that they were supposed to. That's cool.

It's cool. It is... Not a lot I can do in any given situation, though. That's pretty chill. Welcome to being Magnus. That's fucking wicked not true because you've used your power to convince somebody to do something to keep them safe from harm like four times in the last two episodes. Like, it's the mundane has a...

The mundane does shit. Like, the mundane has a role. You all can beat ass, right? Like, even you as the mundane have beaten ass. ass, but now you have this other thing that you can do. Let's take a second to talk about the Max Fund Drive. I love it. Daddy, why don't you go ahead and start telling us some of the donation levels?

Again, if you hear this, the spirit moves you, maximum fund.org slash donate, choose the level that works for you and get these great rewards, father. And that's a really important point. What works for you. Do what you can. But we do have some levels, some suggested levels. There's a $5 monthly membership. You get all this bonus content, exclusive bonus content,

unless we've been hacked, which I don't think we have. We're talking over 100 hours of bonus episodes. Well, across all the different shows, we don't have 200 hours of TAS. But we do have honey heist. We have, by this point, hopefully we've hit 15,000 donors,

although who knows, which means that Taz Elementary 2, which we did record on the Joko Cruise, is going to be up in the feed. We have our episode today. With special guest Patrick Roth. Matt Raffis, and then we have the episode we did with Lynn. We have the first Taz Nights.

Lynn. Lin-Manuel Miranda. Lynn Anderson. Oh, okay. Yeah. And, yeah, just a bunch of Epps up on there. $10 monthly membership gets you the exclusive, the drive-exclusive enamel pin that Megan Lyncott did.

My personal favorite is the Cryptonomica one. But you get that and you get a max fund membership card and all the stuff from the $5 level. $20 monthly membership. This is cool. It's a beautiful 550 piece maximum fund puzzle. Jeffrey Tice designed it specifically for Max Fund monthly members. And it's a, you know, let's face it. You're listening to a podcast. You've got to do something with your hands. Hopefully you're not driving. But putting together this jigsaw puzzle would be a great thing to do. And of course, we cannot stress enough. Don't put together a jigsaw puzzle while you drive. Jigsawd drive. I know it's tempting. I know it is.

35, and of course you get all the things from the previous level. $35 monthly membership. You get this incredible glass coffee mug engraved with the MaxFund Rocket logo. It's safe to microwave. You can't, you can't say that about your pewter mugs, your iron mugs, your magnesium. Your tinfoil mugs. Your tinfoil mugs, you cannot say that. Your mug's made out of grape meat. We don't have to do the higher tier ones right now, but... Well, what else do you need? There are higher tiers.

There are. Yeah. But, yeah, that's... And you get all that great stuff. A lot of great content, a lot of really cool stuff to impress your friends and neighbors with. And we urge you, do what you can. You know, take a look at those levels. Listen to what I say.

And keep me from having to go back to having a real job. And that includes new and upgrading donors. So if you, like maybe you've been at $5 for a while or $10 for a while or whatever and maybe, you know, you start listening to more shows on the network or they've become even more important to you or whatever and you're wanting to up those donations. If you up your donations, you are also then eligible to get the reward gifts that we've just listed. So if you've been considering upgrading, now's the time to do it. Maximumfund.org forward slash donate. Should we get back into the questions? Yeah, we had a question here that was from Chase about when making or playing an arc

or one off for a live show, how do you go about timing it out? Yeah, it sucks. We had ourselves a talk after the New Orleans show because you all kept thinking that the first act, we've started doing intermission in the middle so we can take potty breaks and you all kept thinking the first act was over when it wasn't and so you were like all right call it let's go backstage and eat dinner and i was like no there's i had a button so i try to have a button and then sometimes we don't get there sometimes we go 15 minutes over the first act and then the second act is like 15 minutes long it is it is always that question of and i think we're erring more towards the side of like when we started griffin was very um hinty about what was in the the the arc Like, I don't know, like, I think when you, when we did, um, uh, the wrestling, right. Yeah. Wrestling one.

I think you just told us like, think wrestling. And now I think we, we are a little bit more explicit about what the beats are going to be. Um, because, uh, we want to make sure to like get to the stuff that, that, that, you know, we want to make sure we're keeping a good pace. Um, and we're getting through the story. I mean, they're definitely, I would say more, um, they're probably more guided. did then balance itself was because we have to...

You have an hour and a half. An hour and a half. Got a got to get hit hit the beats. Trying to tell like a whole story in D&D in an hour and a half is impossible because you can spend a fucking hour and a half like dicking around in a tavern. Like it's you can spend, there are whole sessions nights where you play with your friends where you don't actually fight anything because you're just so busy dicking around in some place.

And so like trying to do a whole story in the span of that time is is super hard. As long as we're talking about live shows, Rachel asked, and hopefully this won't come off as too, like, I don't know, self-horn tooting, but I'm curiously hear what you all say. Rachel asks, what's your favorite live show so far? I really did love the wrestle. The first one of Boston? Yeah, the Battlefest.

That was Battlefest. That was good. And not just because it was a great episode, but that was honest and truly the first legitimate live show we had done of TAS where people, you know, like paid money, right? Yeah. Well, we had done LA Pod Fest before that and was this our second live show? Yeah. And but this was, yeah, but this was, wasn't this the first time we had done it like in a theater setting? I mean, the way we do live shows now. Right. Sure. And when we honest to gosh, the reaction. It's why we, I always refer to the Wilbur as our home theater because that was like nothing I'd ever experienced before. And just the reaction of the crowd and the energy that was going on. That was just. a blast.

For me, that was a real touchstone. I would say contender for me, though, is the most recent Candle Night special we did with the Home Alone sequence and the jingle all the way stuff. I like that one, too. I really like the Dracula one. Oh, yeah.

Because I thought it was a good pacing and like, because that's the thing is what you've gotten really good at as far as timing out, things is like saying, okay, I know where we're going to start. I know where we're going to start. I know where I want to be by the act break,

and I know where I want to be by the end of it, but I'm gonna leave plenty of room for you guys to just like, you know, dick around. Sure. And so, like, it was just a lot of plus. I just always like when you do the Dracula voice. It makes me really happy. Thank you.

The casino high is probably for me. Stealing $15 from Gregomaldus. Where was it? Was that San Diego? All the cities are blending again. Um, the, uh, someone said, I know it's a bit early to ask. Here's a quickie. I know it's a bit early to ask, but I was wondering if you all have any plans for what the next arc would be.

And that's from Sawyer. The answer is no. I have an idea for one that I was telling Justin Griffin dad before we started. I want, I think it's time for me to finally take the throne. Take control. I've had so much fun in my, in my rudimentary preparation of, uh, of, uh, of, elementary. I don't know. I think it would be fun to do one at this point.

Oh yeah. I think it would be fun. I think I'd like to do one. But Travis has a really good idea and I'd probably when it comes, when the rubber meets the road as it were, I'll be, by the time we finish Amnesty, I'll be in my twilight years. And I may just want to sit back and rest on my home. I'm hoping to finish. I'm hoping to finish

Amnesty in 2019, so hopefully that's not true. I'm 38, so. Oh my gosh. Wait, what are your plans, dad? I missed dad. Yeah. skydiving baby no I I have

Rocky Mountain climbing I went bull riding I have an idea for a really silly art um that just sung a part but it wasn't the right and he got the right thing

said it wrong I guess great minds don't think of like well let me ask you this are we gonna I mean this shows you how not involved with planning I am So what about going back and doing Experimental arcs again?

Do we, are we? Man, I don't know. Our listener numbers take so hard after balance. Like, they really went to to-oity. And we're starting to, and I don't think it's, I don't think it's because of the arcs are bad. It's just like, imagine if you were watching Lost, right?

And then after it was like, And then they had a whole different bunch of people. Yeah. Yeah. Imagine you're watching Lost and then after the finale and it's like, and that's anyway, that's what it was all about. The next time you showed up, they were all doctors. And it's like, and they were wearing different wigs and stuff.

And it's like, okay, wait a minute. And then there also was a caption at the bottom of the screen that just said, don't get used to this. It's gone in two episodes. Right. Don't try getting connected to this. So maybe we can, like when we were talking about the one-offs and the bonus content stuff, maybe that's the future for these one-off games and maybe these shorter

things might be for live shows or you know for the bonus content i think that what what we are kind of always doing is trying to figure out like what is best for the audience and for the show and trying to find like we've had conversations before about like doing alternating stuff in the off weeks but then once we really god that would be bad yeah that would be so like the the jerkiness of jumping jumping back and forth between two stories, both for us and for the listeners would be, I think, really off-putting. And also just prep time-wise, I don't know that we'd be able to do it. And so, like, we're always trying to figure out, like, what's the best way forward.

So, I don't know. Like I said, I had an idea for a new arc, but I also, like, have an idea for a continuation of dust that I may want to do. Like, the nice thing is we probably have, what, I've been another four or five? months of amnesty? Yeah, it's hard for, again, like, I don't know where the fuck we're going with it, so I can't say for sure. But, I mean, I am, 2019, I'm hoping amnesty will, we will be able to wrap it up in a satisfying way and then, you know, do whatever we want to do now.

We keep saying the word experimental arcs. Like, I would be happy to just do some, some of these, like, one page, you know, one shots. And maybe that's like literally, maybe we're talking semantics at that point. But I don't know. I think we were all so antsy to start season two after or in the middle of dust. And I don't know that I would feel that way again after we finished Amnesty. Like I don't think I would be fine with not starting season three until we were like,

you know, really, really sure we had like explored all these different options and, you know, built something that we could really, really expound on. Which isn't to say Amnesty isn't that, but I wouldn't feel necessarily the rush. I felt between seasons one and two. I've got one I'd like a Saul to address because I think it's a specific question, but I think it's kind of a broad issue that comes up quite a bit from Ricky. When you guys did the scene meeting, Indrid, did you have to like work out what you were going to say beforehand and then do it?

And because that's where I was like, Endred was speaking at the same time as the characters, right? Oh, yeah. No, it was, that was an editing. trick. I just repeated what they said in the moment. So a lie. I moved my shit ahead like a half second. It was a special effect. It was a fucking special effect. You lie to them.

It's not a lie. It's a special editing effect. You can't really tell the future. Yeah. It's a shit. But also, I think that kind of brings up the fact that, you know, we don't prepare chunks of dialogue ahead. No. We don't prepare anything. We don't, we don't know what's, I mean, and we've said it before in previous TTAZZs, but I think it's really important to stress again. We don't know what's coming. That's the beauty of it.

That's what makes it so fun is not knowing what's coming and making your choice in the heat of the moment. And no, we don't prepare dialogue ahead of time. Here's a question for Twitter from David for Griffin. Out of all the NPCs you've created throughout all of the games, which are your favorites? Angus. Uh, uh, Johan, uh, Yohan, uh, Yohan really, I think reflected my existential creative dread that I was experiencing at the, as, as, as we were like halfway through balance. So that's, that's an important. Lucretia, I like, I still get people.

What are you favorites out of amnesty? Um, I like, uh, I like the sheriff a lot. I feel like that's somebody who, uh, is, has interesting motivations for me. And I like Hollis and Billy the Goat. Billy the Goat is extremely fun. Indrid. Indrid is a really fun MPC. Yeah, yeah. And we haven't seen the last of Indrid, but that was a good, that was a good, that was a fun. Like a character who can see the future is like an interesting challenge of trying to make that not like mechanically broken.

Yeah, that's just a few. There's one from Sydney who asks, the Amnesty Campaign has felt more. dark and perilous than balance, especially since the death at the end of the last episode. Who? Yeah, I mean, uh, uh, well, Deputy Dewey. Yeah, but Deputy Dewey, but he's not, he turned into a ghost. He's not, he's not dead in the traditional sense. Um, the, but how intentional is this on Griffin's part?

Is this affecting how Justin Travis and Clint are playing and making choices for their characters? Um, you know, it's funny. We, uh, for some reason, the stakes have been high for us since the beginning. I think it's because what we talked about with being much more grounded. It is not felt like the kind of thing where we're just going to randomly kill somebody. And it's like, I think because it's in the real world, I guess it's real, you know, a real our world where like, there are cops who will, like, arrest you and take you to jail if you do a crime. And I think that that has like permeated through.

Do you think it's darker? Do you think amnesty is darker? Oh, yeah. For sure. I think so, but once again, I think that's a genre thing, right? But the body count is so much higher on average for balance. But when you talk about for like for amnesty, right, some of the bodies are like, that was my brother, right?

Like that they seem because because it's a like specific town, when you think about like a monster of the week kind of procedural show, right? one person dying is a way bigger deal than like in a fantasy high fantasy like an army of people being slaughtered by an evil warlock or something right it's it's the gravity of because i think a you know a monster of the weak thing is so much more character driven than having like but i knew him carries so much more weight to it than like an entire town wiped off the map and i think uh one intentional thing I've been doing with the tone, especially for this arc and the last one, is trying to figure out a way to actually imperil you guys in the world that you inhabit,

which is to say, and it's kind of that, uh, like, Wonderland style of thinking where you guys were demigods and it was like, how can I, how can I hurt you? Like, how can I actually, how can I actually endanger you? How can I add stakes to this? And that informed like literally every part of the design of Wonderland. There's an element of that where, you know, the first dark you were fighting this big, animal consuming shape-shifting monster, which is like a cool, scary visual, but it's a monster that you stab with fire and then it dies. And then the second one, I was like, okay, well, what if you can't stab it? And that's how the water monster came into being.

And then the third one was like, what if it's, you know, not attacking you with claws or with physical damage, but with like fate and with accident? And so, and with that one, I was like, that's scarier to me. That is way, way scarier to me because you don't know what angle it's going to come at you. And then the one I have now, like, you guys don't really know what it is. yet, but it's, it's not a thing that you can just, like, grab and shoot. It's a, it is a more sort of, and and, and for me, like, that is setting a, trying to set a tone that is a little bit more, um, dreadful because you all are powerful, but that power, it can't just be you blasting it with

fire. Like, you have to figure out what the fuck it is first and stop it from doing what it wants to do, um, which is, honestly, which is how Monster the Week is supposed to be played and is like a really, really satisfying part of the game. Like the monster is in a lot of ways, like a PC who is, who has its own wants and desires and is trying to get them and not just like kill you. So I feel like that's why it has a darker tone than balance, which is just like, go get the thing. And there will be dangers there. But you'll, you know, you have a guy who can literally cast a resurrection spell. So don't even sweat it. Well, I will admit, I agree in the fact that I do. feel like we have a better chance in amnesty of, you know, one of the characters, one of the

main characters. You went to the hospital. Like one of you got, one of you got, you know, but I mean, but it came close to death. Yeah. And I, I, you know, I don't know if I ever felt in balance that one, you know, Merle Magnus or Tocco would die, although they came close a few times. Sure. But in this, in amnesty, I very easily could see it happening.

Yeah. And it wouldn't be like, necessarily, it wouldn't be like Taz, where you get in a fight and it goes south and you die. It could just be like a bad role and you get, you know, you get hit by the truck. And like at that point it's not damage. I can't say you're hit with three harm by the fucking truck. Like you're dead. Like these things can, you know, in amnesty, like that's not out of the realm of possibilities. And not just physical damage to you because the question about how does this affect how you play your characters?

Absolutely. Because like with Magnus, you know, kick and. somebody off a cliff, just what he does. He's a fighter. Ha ha. Like, the thought of Aubrey having to murder somebody to, like, keep a secret or to protect somebody, that is going to have long-term psychological ramifications. Like, that's not some, I don't know if it's the tone of the game or the mechanics or

because it's much more grounded characters or what. But, like, somebody, I saw somebody point out, like, when we were in the morgue and, like, like how we all hesitated to attack and how different that was than the Trace Horny Boys. Yeah. Yeah, but that's because like, Aubrey doesn't wanna just recklessly kill people. She'd feel real bad.

My favorite Aubrey scene is when you confronted Keith in the headquarters and tried to scare him into silence, right? Because I have wanted to introduce more than like your good roles and sort of the paths that you walk have allowed me to, like elements of danger of the secret getting out, like, you know, having a FBI agent living with you. Like, I thought, like, ooh, this is going to add some drama. But now he's just kind of like chilling, reading the newspaper, having coffee there every morning and hasn't really had a moment to really investigate y'all.

But like that moment with Keith, where you're like, I know you know what's up. And Keith, Keith is great because that only happened because you spitefully melted the snow beneath him. And he realized you had magic powers and started following you. Everything that happened with Keith happened because of that. role. And that is why the, that's why the Hornets are like now sort of like on the case is all of that snowballed from that one action that Aubrey took during the skiing episode. And impulsive. So I mean, I'll tie that. That's what kicks ass about this game. This next question, because it ties into that, Veronica asked on Twitter, in what ways are each of you most like your characters

you're playing and in what ways you're very different? And like, Aubrey, so even though Aubrey and I on paper are very different, you know, she is far young. than me, Puerto Rican bisexual woman. But at the same time, like, at our cores, we're very, very similar. Like, Aubrey has ADD, I have ADD, very impulsive, like, confident and nervous in weird, specific, different ways. But, like, one of my favorite things is, like, where with Magnus, I played Magnus impulsive, but in a very, like, foolhardy, heroic impulse. With Aubrey, it's a lot more like, honestly, kind of like impulse control issue almost of like when Aubrey gets annoyed at somebody or angry at somebody or whatever or even just like happy, you know, I let her be a little looser in her decision making process and it leads to some pretty bonkers outcomes. Speaking of which, I can't believe after so many the adventure zone zones of me.

complaining about people worrying about Stephen the Goldfish, I then gave myself another pet that people are always worried about. Dr. Harris Bonkers is always fine. Yeah, okay. He will always be fine anytime you don't see him. He's with Danny. He's perfectly happy.

He's great. Well fed. He's well fed. Granic. Carrots. He's sleeping so much. Juice, what about you and Duck? What about him?

Duck, young Duck is more based on, I didn't actually have a youth as cool as ducks but sometimes I would like hang out with cool people and it seems like that's what they were doing like a lot of like Tony Hawk and the skateboarding stuff is like was not my childhood. It was like sort of based

kind of like based on cool people that I knew later and like kind of how they you remember you know the bit waiting for Guffin where Eugene Levy says I was not the class clown but I sat next to him and I studied him

And I picked up a few things that made people have it. That is, uh, so that's, that's pretty much like, honestly, a lot of what Duck is, uh, is kind of me making a lot of opposite choices from Taco, right? If you look at it like, uh, very bad at lying, like very bad at any sort of subterfuge. Um, very bad at lying. By the way, just, since we're speaking a whole episode out of character, is one of my favorite things about all of animosity it might be my favorite like element thank you it is it is um

what i would say to people who do like role playing it is one of the things where if something were like sometimes it's worth it to make a hard choice like that like those hard lines you can draw is are a real comfort when you're role playing is it's like doubly so if you're creating entertainment as you're role-playing, but like, it's nice to have things that you know how you are going to react to. Like, it gets you into a kind of a groove where it's like, okay, well, I know, one of the things I know about this character for a fact is that they're bad about lying. And you have to discover those things. They usually don't work, I think, if it's predetermined. But it's so nice when you, when you find them, because it really helps to help a character sort of take shape.

It's sort of like conflict. Nobody wants conflict, but everybody wants conflict in their stories, so they'll be interesting. I can remember a time where, you know, you reminded me that, you know, that Ned would not be courageous in a certain point. And it was one of the key points for me in developing Ned because, you know, you have the tendency to say, well, of course he does the most heroic thing. No, it's much more interesting if they're a hero, yeah. But if they're not a hero, it's much more interesting if they don't make the heroic choice. And I'm glad that happened because, like, you didn't want to jump in the water whenever the hot springs got, like, monsterified and was choking out Jake Cool Ice. And so you're like, nah, I'm good over here.

But then at the end, at the very end of that arc, like, you were the one who was like, okay, and jumped into, like, the huge water monster, like, tower. form to like finish the finish the fight Spartan. That was that was like and that's a neat sort of juxtaposition. Yeah. I will say that's that's one of the like big differences that I'm trying really hard and I I promise to be more conservative with using the luck roll of the luck stuff from now on. Because it's really hard for me to let Aubrey fuck up. Like, you know, I want her to succeed and I because that was, you know, it's someone you

you're like, oh yeah, I can save this person's life if I roll well. And then it's really hard to be like, oh, but I fucked up and they'll die because I fucked up. And then I have to remember it's a game and it's totally okay. Well, and my favorite stuff that's happened, I feel like came out of failures from young. Because it is, that is where the story can pivot. And, yeah. Some, Shale on Twitter asked, what happened to Pigeon? I don't know. Yeah, that's a great question.

I introduced this character and then you guys told her what was up and then she helped you fight the water monster and that we have not seen seen pigeon. And I've thought of like ways I could try and shoehorn her back into the back into the story. But really like I don't I don't that would feel very inorganic to me. But like there's this person who works for the city like I kind of thought that that would be a contact to use I guess like RPG. terminology of like somebody who works for the city who can like do stuff for y'all who's also on your side would would you know come about but like it's it's it is tough for me uh you all live in the same town right and the setting is smaller but you all don't work in the same floating headquarters and so it was easier for me and balance just be like and you know kerry and killion are there

and uh robbie's there but like i can't just be like pigeon is there because she doesn't she doesn't have a reason to you know what's so she's got a job It's so ironic because once again, it really fits the monster of the week genre because I've been watching a lot more in like supernatural and stuff. And like sometimes you know you just can't get the actor again. We need it 55 minutes. Unbelievable. He actually mentioned it earlier.

Sometimes the actor is working on a different show and you can't get them that week. So Pigeons just not there. You know, it's like there's a lot of moments in like, you know, Monster of the Week shows where it's like, well, it's been three seasons and we haven't heard. from oh he's back okay cool like that will happen you know um we'll book pigeon the actor who plays pigeon for

I want pigeon to come I'm I'm if you all don't get to pigeon soon I am gonna she's gonna parachute in from the sky um does Justin know duck's real name yes that's tantalizing I have and it's all here you know what there's something

is written on my character sheet oh shit somebody's gonna national treasure that shit um I got one I want Travis and I to address from book trash Clinton Travis. Are you both worried to have Aubrey find out about Ned's involvement in her mother's death? And do you think Ned is going to tell Aubrey? I cannot wait.

It's going to be dope. Like that is something that if I remember correctly, during like character creation, we like thought of like that there is some. unknown connection between Ned and Aubrey and like Griffin then kind of took that and ran with it and stuff but like every time the

no no no hey wait no no no no I did not decide that Ned is the one that stole the pendant Oh you're right was that me? I don't know who it was but that that is a huge fucking thing that is formative to like the origins of this game that was not me saying like oh no no no he didn't run with that part I meant I

I think dad and I... Yeah, I think dad is the one that came up with the theft of your thing. And I came up with the necklace, I think was it. It's like, like, I already had a necklace and the dad, that Ned had robbed it. And then we gave that to Griffin. And what I meant was he wove it into the story. Right, right. It has come up organically throughout that.

Because that was the thing is like, this is another reason to have a really solid DM like Griffin is, if it had been up to me, episode two, I would have been like, wait, is that my necklace? And like, it would have, like, come up way too early. Right. And we have, and you know, believe it or not, I think about it all the time. But, you know, it's a big moment. And, you know, there have been moments where, you know, I thought, man, maybe this is where it's going to happen. I know one where, well, you're right, Chad. Ned was ready to blurt it out when he came out of the coma.

Yeah. But it wasn't the right time. It's a big moment. And Ned's not great. And I am worried about it. I am worried about it. It's going to screw things up, I think. Yeah, that's going to be...

I'm looking forward to it, though, because one of the... I'll say, you know, not to fault them because every game is different. One of the weaknesses, I think, of Monster the Week, it does not have a lot of inbuilt moments for character connection. we've had to work a lot harder, I think, to find places for that because I don't know what it is necessarily about D&D. I think it's because so much of it is driven by roles. There are a lot of opportunities for the story to pivot for you to make a lot of little choices where your success or failure will be limited by how well you roll. And I think that it's, and there's probably other reasons that are not a crucial.

to me at the moment, why it's better. But we have had to work a lot harder to get, like, to build character bonds. It's a lot more directed toward, I think that's part of the mystery genre, right? If you think about mysteries, they're very rarely about character growth. They're much more plot focused. It's just a tone thing. Like, I feel like more than anything else, it's just a tone thing, which is, like, not, I don't think that's a knock against the game or the genre, but, like, I said it earlier.

like there's no time for love, Dr. Jones. Like there's, you all are in a constantly precarious situation. And so, uh, I do think for whatever reason like for me, I don't think that's a game thing. I think it's a,

I think it's just the story that we are telling is balance was all about these, these literal bonds. Like that was the whole thing. Uh, and I don't think that there's been no character, you know, relationships that have formed in amnesty. but it's it is not as explicitly about those bonds and so like that's why i don't think we have

like the constant sort of uh connections between every single character like we did in in balance we also had more time right like amnesty ain't going to go 69 episodes um as funny as that would be because of the sex um so like you know we don't have necessarily as much time i don't really remember where we were at episode 24 of taz but i you know it's not like we were the best friends club at that point. So yeah. I think I did, go ahead. Sorry.

Oh, I was just gonna say I don't think dad answered the question about how Ned is like him. Oh yeah. Um, he's full of shit. That's come up. Yeah. Halfway through pedals to the metal, by the way. Okay, that's about where we started. It's sort of making friends, I feel like.

Yeah. And, and yeah, kind of embracing the. whole mythos of it. I don't, I, I, I don't, I, I don't know if Ned is much like me. I, I think that Ned, I'm, under some situations, I can be kind of gregarious and, and like I said, full of shit. Um, but for the most part, to me, it's attractive. I have, I like playing characters that aren't like me.

and I don't know if Ned is is like me very much at all I thought that you know it was funny because with Merle Merle was like me in the fact that he was he was really terrible at what he was doing

which reflected me being really terrible at D&D when we started you know then you got so good and then I got really good at it almost too good we have to but every day before we go out for the live show, I have to look at Dad and say,

Dad, you have to go back to pretending like you don't know what you're doing. Right. And that's tough. Before we wrap up, I want to mention one more time. This show exists because of the Max Fun Drive. And it is what has inspired us to continue making it and support it. And as the support you have given us over the years has honestly been, I try to get choked up like every single time I talk about it,

but it means the world to me. And the fact that so many people think are. show is worth kicking a few bucks too. Like, honestly, is such a, it fills me with a lot of pride. If you listen to this show and you are not a donor and you can spare just five bucks a month, it really does add up and it really does mean a lot. If you can do more, that's fantastic. But please, I would implore you, like, make a vote with your money for the kind of stuff

that you want to see in the world. And it really does help us out so much. maximum fund.org for it slash donate is the URL. The gifts are all there. You can, you know, get a lot of your questions answered there. On Twitter, you can do at MaxFunnHQ, and they can answer questions too if you have more. But if you can, don't wait. This is our last sort of shot. You know, we got, as you're listening to this, maybe two days left before this drive-in. So please don't wait anymore. Go to Maximumfund.org right now and choose a level to donate at and get on board. And let's do this. And once again, it's a great time to,

upgrade your donation as well. You can do that at maximum fun.org forward slash donate. And if you're already a donor and you can't upgrade, take to Twitter, take to social media, tell people like, hey, there's, you know, times running out. Get on board. Let's do this and share that link and tell people why you donate and why it matters. And thank you so much. Quick programming note, next week's episode, we are pushing a week. So we will have episodes two weeks in a row when we come back, but we are about to go on tour. We're going to be in San Jose,

doing Taz on Tuesday the 2nd, and Mbim Bam on Wednesday the 3rd, and then Salt Lake City on Thursday the 4th. I'm not exactly sure what we still have tickets for. So we'll be gone like all next week. And if you get a Macquarie.com family and click on tours, I think there's still tickets for all those, but not many. So, yeah, we are pushing next week's episode

to the following week. So the next Amnesty episode will be up. on April 11th, and then we'll have one up the week after that, too. And if you do not know the way to San Jose, check with Burt Backrack. Okay. Yes. Thank you, Mac. I think that's it.

Thank you all so much for your questions and for continuing to listen to our show. And I hope you stick with it and support us at maximum fund. org slash donate. And what else? Is that it? And as we always say, now it's your turn to adventure. Hero? Do we?

As we've already said, you are now leaving the zone of adventure that is a here. Get in the zone. It turns out was in you. The zone of the adventure zone. You're going AZ at Adventure Zone. Discover what you can do on your own. Maximumfund.org. Comedy and culture.

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