The Adventure Zone - The The Adventure Zone Zone: Post-Grad!

Episode Date: April 29, 2021

We’re answering some questions about The Adventure Zone: Graduation, both listener questions and questions we had for each other. We also talk a little bit about the next season and how we’re changing things up in terms of world-building.The game we will be playing as the opener to the next season is The Quiet Year, designed by Avery Alder. You can learn more about the game here: https://buriedwithoutceremony.com/the-quiet-year 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

As we go on, we remember all the times we had together. Ooh, a little pitchy. And as our lives change. Oh, where we going here. Come whatever. Now make it minor key. We will still be friends forever. Oh, that got scary and unresolved, and I hated every second of it.

Hi, welcome to post-grad. It's the Adventure Zone Zone, following up graduation. I'm your former dungeon master and best friend, Travis McRoy. I'm Griffin. Macquarie, are we doing this? I don't know, that's it. Yeah. Yeah.

No, I mean introducing ourselves. It's something we never ever do on the show. Oh, hey, I'm Justin. I played a lot of different roles in the show. But my favorite was Festo. You did great. You did a really good job with that. Thank you.

And I'm Clint McElroy, and I was Argonaut keen and confused. Okay, great. Perfect. Welcome. We're going to be discussing, you know, overall questions, and we have some questions from listeners, and we'll be discussing the next arc of the adventure zone. But first, I wanted to open it up, because we haven't really talked about it after finishing the finale. Did you guys have any like unresolved questions for me about graduation?

I'm curious about the sort of shift that I feel like happened, maybe halfway through the season where the sort of school format was, and we talked about this. This is not, you know, some new discussion, but this, the format of us being students in a school, became a little bit of an albatross of like how do we actually make that, how do we, how do we, how do we deify that? Like, how do we make that a game? And there were a few different levels of that. One, like, we were upgraded from just pure hinge people pretty quickly because we had, like, one quest where we realized, like, playing somebody's assistant

was just tough for us to do this show as. But then it seems like we sort of shifted over to something else, something less structured in the way that school is structured. And I'm curious, like, how you, how you kind of thought about that shift. Yeah, so from the beginning, I mean, this was originally designed as a kind of spoof of, uh,

I hate, and I hate that this is true, but of Harry Potter, mostly, when you say spoof, also, you're not talking about, like,

this, this wasn't the scary movie. No, no, okay. It was meant to kind of, and not just, Harry Potter, I guess, more to say like a lot of the tropes of like the school, you know,

adventurer thing, sky high, descendants, a lot of that kind of thing. Riverdale. Riverdale, yes, exactly. Sabrina. And pretty quickly, it did, as you said, begin to feel very restrictive as far as like going on adventures went because I think that the school setting is. great for like interpersonal dramas and conflict and stuff, but not so great about like task-oriented things. And I think what I kind of realized that I'd always kind of take it for granted is

if you watch or read those stories, they move out of classrooms pretty quickly that like, unless you're like saved by the bell, you're not like sitting in a classroom, you know, once an episode or whatever. Like they kind of establish they are in school. And, And then you spend less and less time in the building every time. But for me, I think it's just making you guys have more agency as characters became more important. And I think the student kind of structure was limiting in that regard because I didn't want you guys to feel like you were locked into like a class schedule or like worrying

about getting in trouble with teachers or whatever the shit. Right. Do you have talked a lot about. like what you would do differently, which is so many things. Which is very natural. I feel like I feel the very same way about amnesty. Like if I could go back and, you know, re-plan the first half of amnesty like I absolutely would to kind of limit character creep and bloat, like, plot bloat and stuff like that.

But I'm curious, like, if you could go back, would you, what would you do differently about like the school structure? Like, what would you do differently about that? think it would still be similar, but I think instead of like a school, it would be kind of a guild thing where there would be training and there would be, you know, like people running it and everything, but I think it would be a lot less traditional school structured. Because I think the other thing, my other kind of big thing I changed right from the beginning is because it was a school, I was so worried about it feeling empty. And so like I had all these teachers and NPCs and

other students and stuff in my head because I wanted it to feel fully populated, right? Like there's a lot of people here and, oh, who teaches this and who teaches this and who teaches this. And I think in worrying so much about that, I tried so hard right at the beginning to make it feel populated that it was just way too fucking many characters. And I think with a guild kind of structure, I could have loosened that up a lot while still having the, we're going out on adventures and this person's going to train you in this thing. and still kind of had a similar idea with how making it like class schedules and this person's the bursar and that kind of thing. Dad, Justin, anything you guys want to ask before we get into the listener questions?

Justin, how much of Fear Bowl was fully formed when we went into graduation? What are you referencing specifically? Well, I mean, his philosophy, his... His philosophy was easy. because it was almost in every episode we ever recorded, I always had the Fear Bowl code pulled up. I always had it there and would refer to it anytime that, I mean, it was almost like a cheat sheet, right?

Anytime, like, I mean, eventually I just had it my heart, so I didn't need it like there in front of me. But any time that there would be, I would be unsure about something, I would think. Bravery, effort, honor over birth, tribe's honor over yours. The blood of the run is the blood of the king. Give a thousand for nothing.

Truth is the honor of the tribe. Like that, and that is the guiding principle that I used for him. And I guess... Is that from the, like, from the source materials, like from a book? Or is that from? It's from the forgotten realms wiki.

Okay. And it's translated, of course, from the original... Fear, Bolin. Joe Toon. Okay. So that was like always the guiding principle. And then I just introduced this one idea of, but also agency. But also what if someone in there like came up with a better way of doing things?

And that was really informed by the idea of commerce in this world. And the importance of commerce in this world. Because I think that I wanted to see like if that was going to be a very important tenant, how would that idea of economics and market forces and all that stuff, like affect him? You say a better way of doing things, though, and I'm not entirely convinced that that ended up being true for the Fear Bowl. Well, it was from the Fear Bowl's point of view, right? Well, maybe, but to a limited extent, right? Because I feel like there was a certain amount of his mercantile nature that was, like, pretty way backpedaled by the end of the season.

And I don't know if you felt the same, if you felt the same way. But I don't know. It felt like you were going so hard in that direction when you were taking the economics classes and sort of brushing up on the lingo, so to speak. But after, especially after the scene where Fearbol's father dies, I feel, I don't know. That's what it read to me is if you were sort of backing away from that pretty dramatically to lean on those tenants. For me, and I would love to say that this is all like 100% intentional, but, you know, there's all kinds of anything like this is littered with thousands of happy accidents.

And in hindsight, you can craft a narrative that justifies pretty much anything. But I would say that for me, I think what that reflected was a very college experience of that the Fear Bowl had of being introduced to a new idea. that was incredibly inspiring to you, that soon became like the center of almost every conversation, every thought you had, was guided by this one thing, right? It's like he was like the person that took philosophy 101, and then in every conversation,

he was like, but what does truth mean? Right. You know what I mean? But then as he got like longer in the story and as he was sort of like drawn back to his own culture, what I tend to think of it as, is he found ways to synthesize that as like not his totality of his personality, but rather a facet of him.

And it helped him sort of integrate into the Gary's in a way that made a lot of sense. I just want to say, I think I am, I think I enjoy being a player more than I enjoy being a DM. And this is not a judgment call, right? I think that some people have strengths and weaknesses and everything. And I think I'm a stronger player than I am a DM. And I just want to say that right off the bat. One of the things, though, that I am very proud of as a DM in this is that the college experience thing was something that I was kind of quietly doing the whole time.

Yeah. And so, like, for example, like the broken chain, right, represented in a fraternity to me, right? And them trying to separate Argo out from the other two. and make it about them and like, we're your friends now, right? And that kind of thing of trying to excise him out. And then Argo making the choice of like, no, I'm just going to tell them everything. I care more about them than I do with you. It was like a choice that Argo made.

And that thing of like, I knew how much Fear Bowl was looking to belong. So I introduced him to this dynamic teacher of, you know, economics and accounting. And that caught on. and then seeing the fear bulb marry that into his own beliefs and bring it back to a point where he feel comfortable. The idea of, like, everybody trying to push the fear bulb to lie and the fear bulb continually standing up to them and continually being like, that is not who I am,

like, that idea of being tested as you, like, make that transition into adulthood and not just doing things, you know, doing things because you believe in it. And one of my happiest moments, the moments when, like, I had this little, tiny explosion of joy inside is when Griffin completely on his own made the decision to basically change majors and say, I don't want to be a knight anymore. And I was like, yes, yes, yes. It was like, so perfect of that of like, I went into college, thinking, knowing what I wanted to be, and then,

like, realizing, no, that's not actually it. Like, that was what I wanted to be when I was a kid. And now that I'm growing up as an adult, I see what I really want to be. It was, it was even more than that because what I felt for fits was this deprogramming of thinking of other people based, like judging them based on their value. And as a result, like judging myself based on my value. And I think that's a big reason, like, he wanted to go into the knighthood. And, you know, we didn't necessarily get to explain, like, the origins of all that, but you saw some of the dissonance of, like, you know, he is not exactly who he says he is based on the, you know, the, these letters that Argo wrote to his mom.

And I think a lot of that was just like posturing. And a lot of that was just like, that's how he thought to conduct himself. And that's how he thought like, that's how he thought of success. And over the story, like I just feel like that was revealed to him, that that is not the healthiest way to judge people

or judge yourself or think about life or any of that. And so him stepping down from being a knight was just like, yeah, that's, I don't have to be a knight to be, like, to think of myself as worthy or whatever anymore. Yeah, I want to ask a question to you, Griffin. Travis just said that he feels like he is a better player than a DM. Now that you've done both, where do you think your skills? I'm exceptional at both. Oh, wow. I'm one of the best.

Oh, you're channeling Fitzroy now. Okay. Yeah. God, I don't know. it's hard to say. I will say that I had more fun being a player by a pretty huge margin. Oh, yeah, baby.

Yeah. It's so much easier. It's way jealous. And also, like, I don't know, that drive you all had to fuck with me when I was running stuff in balance and amnesty to, like, see how far you could push it. When I had occasion to do that in graduation,

it was, like, genuinely excited. and I get it now. It's not from like this. Felt good, didn't it? Yeah, but it's not like a misanthropic energy. It's just like exciting to, I don't know, to rest authorship a bit on the fly as you go. I thought it was really fun. But that said, like, I don't know, I did. There's something more comprehensive about DMing and like making the music.

And that was kind of a challenge this time around like scoring stuff. and me and Trevor can talk about that, like not knowing like what was going to come next or what the context of the scene was going to be in, et cetera, et cetera. I don't know. It's my own sort of control freaky nature, I feel like found a lot of satisfaction in DMing and production and all that stuff.

But there is an amount of dread that I felt every time I sat down to record when I was in charge of the show, right? Oh, yeah. And there were certainly high stakes episodes and episodes that I felt like, you know, there's a dramatic beat here that we need to stick the landing on.

But I did not feel that dread at all. So, yeah, it's, you know, it's different, different stuff. Do we want to start doing some of these audience questions? And if anything else pops up, go ahead and roll with us. Sure, yes. What have you learned from being the DM in graduation? Do you think you'll play D&D any differently now that you've been a DM? That's from Angela.

Well, so two different questions. What have I learned as a DM? You know, it's funny because I think that the times when I felt like I was doing a good job or doing the best job I was doing and the times I was having most fun is when I had the loosest grip on the reins. Yeah. But the thing, yeah, but the thing about that is that is also horrified. Right. Right. Like there is not a lot of security there.

So like the last two episodes, Mission Impospital, there were like a couple other episodes in there where I was like, oh, yeah, this is going great. But if anything misfires, I have no fucking clue what to do. Right. And so it's the feeling of like running while leaning forward where it's just like me. And so I think that that is the maybe where the lack of strong suits. lies is like if you are someone with like underlying control issues yeah yeah you might have a a good time telling your friends a story and you might not have as easier time letting other people play that that shit out as much yeah we've and me and Travis have talked about this off off air a lot

and and this is like doing an actual play show like this is the thing is this balance between prep and authorship and playing the game. Right. And I fully feel the same way about balance. I feel the same way about amnesty. And I know you feel the same way about graduation of just, I wish I had the, I don't know if it's confidence. I don't know what I don't know what the character trait is.

But it's fucking terrifying to go in without a, like, beat for beat plan without knowing exactly what's going to happen in the episode. But like, that's the, that's the nature of the game. And that's the, that's like what makes the medium works so, so well. And I know people get frustrated at us for this exact thing too. But yeah, I feel the same way that it is this show. And really, this medium is at its best when you are, when you have just enough planned and not a, not a beat more. And I think that that's something that, you know, I think you and I both know a lot better now. Yeah, and I also now having this be my first time deemming like a full arc,

I think the thing that I would do is I would kind of reverse the way I plan things, because I went into it with when I was thinking about not over planning, I was thinking about a goal that I wanted the story to go to overall, right? Right. And so I would plan episode by episode. But then the problem with that is I would have flipped that, right? and I would have said, like, this is where I'm heading, and then I would have done less prep for each episode.

Right. Because the thing is, like, and I think that I could have smoothed out the whole season a little bit more if I'd known what's going to happen in it that I know now. Because there were just, like, for example, chaos wasn't like a planned character until, like, two episodes before I introduced them. Right. And then I, like, had that idea of, like, I think chaos is a character in it, and that's where all this stems from. And then it worked out great.

And, and, but like, that was kind of how it kept going. It's like, oh, okay, I think this is what's going to happen now. Okay, great. And that, when those clicked, was great. It was like, oh, that makes so much sense. I'm so excited about this thing. But then to get to that point, I would have to take a, a heavier hand in guiding each episode, which I think felt more restrictive.

I think there were a couple of times, I mean, off mic, where we had the conversation of like, hey, what are we supposed to be doing? And I was like, oh, I don't have anything planned for you, but I gave off the energy that I was expecting you guys to do something because I kept narrowing the passageways you were walking through, metaphorically speaking. And I think in retrospect, I would have kind of reversed that

and given you more room to move, but known what the big overall evil thing was going to be better. You know what I mean? Does that make any sense? Yeah. As far as changing the way that I would play the game as a player, no, not really. I would just try hard not to med a game that way, right? Because I think trying to play the game as a DM player would get in the way of the DM, I guess, if that makes any sense.

Mm-hmm. I have a question for dad. Yeah. Clint, how did you decide that Argo was? going to go through with the revenge and not try to let the Commodore live. What about the character led you to that choice? And that's from Nicholas. I prepped Argo more than any character I've ever done before.

I love Argo, by the way. I don't know if I said it. Argo was very fun to DM for it. Thank you. I enjoyed playing Argo. It was, and I decided on the revenge thing pretty, I mean, from the get-go, you know, before we even started. And that was always kind of in the back of his mind.

And when we first encountered the Commodore, it was kind of a, you know, I'm doing this for his mom, for Shabby, for Shabby's memory, to get revenge. It was very much a revenge thing. Yeah. And, you know, I might have wavered a few times. you know, should I make that choice? Should I not make that choice as we as we progressed? Him wanting revenge on the Commodore morphed into extreme hatred of the Commodore. And just he was so reprehensible on every possible level,

Trab, you leaned into the reprehensibility of the character. I don't think we've had a lot of like truly hateable characters. I think we've had a lot of bad guys who, you know, if you squint hard enough, you can see where they're coming from. And I wanted a character that was just a real piece of shit. Yeah. I knew that he was going to, to honor Shabree. He had to honor his mom. And I think that's why, you know, didn't let him off the hook.

Besides, you know, I think if he had spared him, there was always the chance that he was going to come back, regain his power. And so fucking capital punished, Mr. Capital Punchman over here. You don't get a second chance, huh? I broke bad on it. Yeah, I'll say. Wowzers. So, yeah, I kind of stayed. I didn't waver much, but they're, you know, I got to that point.

And just as in a lot of the things that we do, and I especially do in playing this game, is to try to be in the moment and not force things. and at that exact moment, that's what it felt like Argo should do. Mr. Rubo Man, what are you doing? I'm just taking one last look at my co-workers. Every journey comes to an end. Remember, PLEC. The space will be with you, always.

Sorry, who are you again? Mr. Kiirondos? Oh, right, right, right. Just calling in. Friendships will be. tested. Do you have to do it. You have to shoot Plick.

Okay. You shot him so fast. Destinies will be fulfilled. I've become a complete bird. I'm flying. I'm flying. On April 28th, the saga starts concluding. Guys, we don't have a choice.

We have to put on a show. We can do it in the old barn. We've got the costumes. We've got a stage. We can do it, you guys. Mission to Zix, the final season on maximum fun. I have a question for Justin. Yes.

So, on earth my Nina, loved hearing such a prominent TMBG reference during such a prominent story beat for the Fear Bowl. That band was huge for me during my cultural development, so I found it very touching. Just can't help but wondering, was there a rationale behind it, or was it a spur of the moment thing? And that was Ned? It was not a spur of the moment thing. It was something I had thought about for a long time, actually. If you listen to the episode where they're planning a scam to run on the centaurs, but they don't want the fear bulb to know because he won't be able to lie about it.

Do you know what I'm talking about? Yes. Yeah. Did we talk about this in the last The Adventure Zone Zone? Maybe. This feels familiar now, actually. I was humming that tune, the tune to the song. It's something I've always loved.

I love the idea that it was a, it sort of challenges the idea of what it, this is going to sound so ridiculous, but it sort of challenges the idea of what is art because it is the reversal of an existing song that then has like lyrics that sound like the reversal of the song sort of juxtaposed onto it. So like they're the result of,

phonetic um circumstance and not necessarily like an artistic choice uh i liked it because it also kind of sounds like a different language because it is not uh you know the lyrics are very abstract yeah yeah exactly and the the melody also is very sort of fucking sucks to compose music to wowzers yeah wow that was a tough one yeah it's still one of my favorite i love that the music and and and And Justin, you're singing, I think, made that a really cool moment in the show.

Yeah, I felt good. I knew I was going to deploy it at some point. I just didn't know. You know, you have some things that you want to try to get to as a character. And I think that one of the challenges of that, like, I'll give me an example in Amnesty, revealing that his name was Wayne. I knew his name was Wayne. And I knew that it was like a level.

I could pull. It was a payoff I could deliver when the moment was right. And it's finding the balance of not rushing stuff like that and just trusting that the moment will come and that when you deploy it, you know, the longer you wait, the more you've sort of built to it.

And this is not exactly that because it's not like I left a bunch of like, you know, breadcrumbs towards this, towards this song. But I knew that I could use it. I knew that at some point like it would be part of the thing. And it was nice.

And I knew that with the Gary thing, too. Like, I knew, uh, could be, I, I made the connection in my head pretty early on between the Gary Hivemind and the fear bowl sort of like community above all else, uh, ideas. And that that was sort of like a, a fit that could make sense. Yeah. Um, so I, I kind of, um, you mentioned having something like in your head that you're like, I will use that. when the time is right.

The second Griffin said that Fitzroy belonged to this, like, knighthood thing that he didn't know if it was real or not. I instantly was like, it is real and they will be showing up. It was just like, I immediately know, like, yes, yes, yes. And I don't know if it came across in the end because I kept saying floating. And now, in retrospect, listening to it back, I'm worried that that makes it sound like it's a floating, like island or something. But I was thinking about it more in the terms of, like, guys and dolls. Wherever you are, there's home. Right, right, right.

Is that there is no physical place of good castle. It is that you belong to good castle. Whenever you're somewhere where a castle is good, that is how you know. So when good castle is called upon, you come together as good castle. And then you disperse back to your individual places. What kind of was going for? But like as soon, I was like, I cannot wait for the army of, of good castle to appear. It's all I want.

As long as we're talking music, I have a question for Griffin. What was your inspiration for the music for graduation? It always was perfectly fitting to the situation and really helped set the scene.

That's from Tyler. It was, there are a few different ones. I feel like for, when I was doing Amnesty, I found like some different weird kind of scary synthetic stringed instruments that I was like really into. And so that was sort of the defining sound for a lot of that.

But that led me down to this path of a lot of different sort of, I don't know, instruments I hadn't messed around with before, like a Cotto and like a, you know, some other non-Westerns. stringed instruments, which was sort of a departure from the Appalachian dulcimer from Amnesty. I basically just, I purchased a whole bunch of different acoustic instrument sounds and started to mess around with those. And I think a big inspiration was Chrono Cross. I don't if you guys ever played that one, but it had this very, like, lively acoustic sound using a bunch of different sort of world instruments. And that was a big inspiration.

for a long time. And then, I don't know, I started to mess with loops again, not sort of the garage band loops that was the bread and butter for Taz balance, but other forms of looped instruments. And I'm rambling a lot. Honestly, I feel like I started pretty coherently, both this question and the music for Taz graduation. But then over time, I don't know, especially as the game changed and as the story changed, as we leaned more into this like concept of chaos and change than then I felt a little bit more empowered to mess around with with different sounds.

But yeah, the Kronos inspiration also, I realized this well after we had started the season, but the theme song for Taz graduation sounds kind of a lot like the theme song to Krono Cross. So I feel like there was a bit of an homage. Osmosis. Omages. Yeah. Omage makes it sound intentional, which it wasn't,

which then I think it's just pure theft at that point. I should have, because you mentioned chaos, that was inspired by Griffin's choice, not the other way around.

Like, Griffin deciding to, like, play the chaos wizard barbarian Fitzroy kept, like, giving me idea. Like,

I liked that idea so much. Yeah. And like it was such a fun element in just scenes and combat and everything that like I just kept doing it more and more until we invented like until I invented the character of chaos. And then I thought of, oh, this is so dumb. But the thing that made me think of order was there's a line in Mel Brooks's Blazing Saddles where I believe Howard Johnson says. You know, Nietzsche says, out of chaos comes order. And I thought of that line popped to my head and I thought, oh, yeah, there's got to be a bound. There's another side.

Yeah. And so then order came out. And, you know, I think one of the things that the final battle is maybe one of my favorite, it might be like the culmination to me of like my favorite thing from the whole season. Same. Because it just felt like, oh, yep, this is, everything has added up to this. It was just a fuck. It was a lot of fun. Like, you asked about being a player.

Like, that was some of the most fun I've ever had playing Dungeons and Dragons because it was just like, it was bonkers. It was unapologetically bonkers in a way. I think that that, you know, I think my biggest regret of DMing this season was that. Travis, do you have any regrets left over? from this season. Oh, thank you for asking. This is from Jeff. Putting aside the division from fans

and outside opinions aside, are there things you wish you had the time, energy, and capacity to do this season, Jeff. That's a Jeff original. That's a Jeff OG. I went into this trying to DM like Griffin. I went into this trying to make it feel like balance and amnesty.

And I think that there's an inherent problem with switching DMs, what, 120 some episodes in, right? But I was trying to make it feel like that. And if I could do it again, I think I would go back and say like, hey, you need to figure out your own kind of style because I think in that final fight, that was the time where I think it felt most like just me doing it, where it's like, yeah, it's absolutely bonkers, right? Like, there's fucking laser shooting everywhere and you're turning into cats and figurines and there's a thousand hellhounds and it's absolutely wild and there's trees growing in the ceiling. Like that kind of shit.

Like, I'll always think of the Bigfoot stole my car live show where Griffin turned into his character, I think was 11 year old Griffin turned into a car, right? And that kind of shit is like when I have the most fun yimming. but I also think that inherently, if I had played that way from the beginning, it would have felt like a different show in its own way? I don't know. You know, I think that that was a tricky needle to thread, and I didn't thread it from either direction. Well, but in your defense, Amnesty suffered in the, I'm so proud of where amnesty ended up. But I was trying to be end of balance DM, Griffin. when we started Amnesty.

And that led me to not give you guys enough agency. It led to a lot of monologuing set up for different concepts and world rules and introducing too many characters that I would never come back to. And like, these are the same complaints that people have leveraged at, at graduation. And it's, it is a desire, I think, to, I don't know, return to a kind of storytelling that we hit at the end of the season, at the beginning of the season. And I don't think that works. Like I straight up just don't think it works at all.

Well, and I will say, a small spoiler for the next season because people will be listening and saying, well, if it's a problem, what are you going to do? I think that the way that we've started the next season addresses that. I think it will fix that because of the transition into it. You know what I mean? Like, I think we have changed the way we have done world building. And I think that that will give us a cleaner start. without that kind of rebound relationship feeling.

And we can talk more about that at the end of. I also noticed that nobody ever says, I was really trying to DM like dad did in commitment. Or like Justin did. I'd never, I'd never. If graduation taught me anything, it's that I'm definitely still never, ever, ever, ever, ever going to DM.

It seems so hard. And it seems really hard. and stressful and there's just no way. And I'll never do it. I'll never, ever. Yeah, I think ever do it. I don't have the guts. I don't have the courage.

I don't have the work ethic. Don't have the creativity. Don't have any of the things that would require to make it a good experience for anybody above all the listeners. I'll never ever do it. Thank you to Travis for biting that bitter, bitter pill because I'll never do it myself.

I'm glad I could be here for you, Justin. At this point, it seems like balance was a particularly long arc. But do any of you have a preference for the length of the arcs? That's from Julian. And I think I'm probably best position. Okay, so please, please.

No, I'm not. Okay, great. My original plan for graduation was 50 episodes. I wanted it to be in five chunks, 10 episode chunks. and you know if you want to make God laugh make a plan so I will be honest right there there came a moment if I may open my heart for a moment there came a moment oh I think about 20 some episodes in where I just wanted to stop it or I didn't want to keep making it because I didn't

feel like I was doing a good job uh I knew that it that there were some people out there who really did not like it um and like I even entertained the idea of seeing if we would be able to, like, bring someone in to finish out the season. A cleaner. A Mr. Wolf. Yeah, and I would just step away from it. And then they could finish it and we could move on to something else. And that was a very hard place to be.

And then I thought that is not fair to the people who have liked graduation. That is not fair to Dad and Justin and Griffin, who have put a lot of work into these characters. and there are aspects of this that I like, and there are aspects of DMing that I like doing. And so instead, I just kind of redoubled my focus on the story and the things that I liked and working with the characters and that kind of thing. And I think by the end of it, it got to a place that I was very, very, very proud of and that I really liked the finale.

I thought the finale was exactly what the finale of grand. graduation should be, like editing it, listening to that last episode, I mean, you know, 20 times while I'm editing it. And every time I thought more and more like, this feels right for not only the battle, but also like where everybody ended up. And like the final scene just felt so tonally right for graduation. And so as far as the length goes, I mean, I don't think it's about a number of episodes, right, or length, right? Some books, when you write them, are 700 pages. And some books, when you write them, are 300 pages. And I think it's just about the story being told.

Well, I think Graduation had a much more epic, or sorry, balance had a much more epic, universe-sweeping story. And I think graduation and Amnesty both had a much more focused, you know, like a little more linear story that, just didn't take as many episodes to tell. Well, also, I think that there's also a big difference between calling it an arc and calling it a season because balance was a season made up of, what, six, seven, very distinct. Seven or eight arcs, yeah, sure.

And arcs that were very different in, you know, in setting and tone and everything else. and, you know, I think that that's a big difference in treating a season that's broken up like that. Well, but also we weren't thinking about balance as a season while we were doing it. I don't think, or at least I wasn't when I was like structuring it. And that's like, that's honestly the place where I would love for Taz to get back to is like having it. We don't think about a Bim Bam as having seasons, right? So like in the very same way, I was not thinking about balance in that way. I was just thinking about it as this is the show where we come and we play and Dungeons and Dragons. And then maybe, you know, by the time we were getting through the suffering game, I was like, oh, okay, I see the end in sight now and now let's start working to it. But it wasn't like, this is going to be 69 episodes, as funny as that would have been, to have

that be the target from the very beginning. I feel like it would be fun to just sort of have the world that we play in and not sweat so much necessarily having, having, you know, big, big climactic, you know, sweep sweep moments and stuff like that and just sort of being a bit more, I don't know, kind of organic. I just feel like it would be easier, which is, you know, now my concern now that I have two children and I'm staring down the barrel of DMing again. Let's see. Well, here's the one.

Have you considered including guests for short arcs in future campaigns in Wyoming? not in the show proper, only because, like, I think we've done it once or twice in, like, live shows and stuff. Yeah. But the scheduling of it and the planning of it is logistically difficult enough already with the four of us and our various time commitments to things.

But that's said... And please know that that's not bullshit. We are recording this The Adventure Zone Zone after having to bump it twice. Because we, like, it's tough. It's fucking hard for the four of us to get together and record shit these days. Also a massive time of commitment is like, it's also like, and this is like honestly gets down to like practical logistics. A four person podcast is a lot.

A four person remote podcast is a lot of people. For us, I'm sure there are people who are more skilled than I that can swing it better. We are very fortunate to know each other's rhythms like backwards and forwards. but I think that like trying to insert a fifth body no matter whose body it may be into that a remote like role playing game phone call is like a massive a massive challenge I think that would be like we it for one-offs and stuff like that it's I think um a lot easier to do because there's less pressure on it and it can just be kind of fun and freewheeling but for like the day and day out like it's it's it would be be really tough. And for those one-offs, I mean, like, live shows, it's always fun to have guests. And I think that as, as if we are able to do more in the future at, like, conventions and stuff, I think having more guests for that is a slam dunk. And started trying to put together more, like, one-off video stuff for YouTube. But that is a lot more production. We have one that is being edited right now that I don't know when I'll be out, but it's super fun that's like me and all guests. But more stuff like that. I mean, trying to, trying to, trying to, you know, there's so many amazing creators in the, like, RPG world. Trying to get more of them involved would be great.

You know, it's just for the show itself, logistically, it's so difficult. I was wondering, this is from Sahara, who, one, who is everyone's favorite NPCs, and two, what is everyone's favorite moment for graduation? I really like Sabor was one that I very much enjoyed. named after Paul Saboran. Yeah. That was the turtle, right? The turtle.

The turtle. Mostly because scenes between St. Boran and Fear Bowl. I straight up went. I just think it. I got a fucking Capri-sun and drank all of it during one of those scenes. So funny. I like doing those. Oh, Festo is obviously the best.

I love being Festo. Yeah, Fesso is very the best one. I also liked being Snippers, though. Snippers was very fun from my point. of you. I loved playing a snippers. I liked Gary a lot. Oh, yeah. I liked them very much. I liked, there was a guy in a bar that was like a janitor at the bar.

Who was the guy we talked to at a bar that just like came out of nowhere? Oh, right, right, right. A lot of fucking scenery. He was like a fake hologram person, right? Because it was just for a lesson thing. Oh, my gosh. No, I'm not even thinking about that. It's like when we got called out by the centaur woman who, oh, Jesus Christ.

Oh, you're talking about Patrick Shortburton. Yes, yeah, that's who I'm talking about. Yeah, he delighted me. Festo, of course, and Rainier, I loved every scene that we had with Rainier. And for me, I think it's gray. But, like, I'm a fucking sucker for the good, like, super evil guy. becomes reluctant ally like

there is I was thinking about it the whole time so in reboot the cartoon reboot there was a moment it was Inzo's birthday when the I think about Inzo's birthday a lot

The bad guy shows up and it looks like he's about to attack But what's his name? Megabyte Megabyte shows up and it looks like he's about to attack But instead like he and Bob do like a dueling electric guitar

thing and then Megabyte just like walks away. And I think that that more than anything is the clearest inspiration for Gray's character. I wish that that wasn't true. But I think Megabyte from reboot is the closest thing to a direct inspiration for Gray's character. When are we going to do that reboot, that reboot season? Oh boy, I would love that. Are you kidding me? I love it.

I think my favorite, as far as like moment was when you guys decided to serve. the Zorn with a subpoena. Like that to me, that represents a moment of like tonally how graduation was so different from past arcs

of that moment of just like, we are going to give the Zorn and was so wonderfully weird to me and like really worked for me. There was also a moment in Mission Imposteal where Ian the amp like you guys killed another

amp so hard. that Ian decided to stop being evil and take up cheese mongering. And like that made me really happy too. Can we do a lightning round so I can return to my shrieking child? We'll do a lightning round instead of then we can talk a little bit. This is one.

This is an easy lightning round one. Favorite character that you have played. You've all got quite a few characters under your character sheets under your belt. This is from Inverted Crabb. Um, who is the, uh, who's the favorite character you guys have played in all of Tas? Uh, mine is still Magnus. I love all my characters a lot, but Magnus is like, the most fun I think I had.

Uh, Ned for me, as much as I love Merle, um, and, and I really enjoyed playing Argo. Argo was hard for me to play because, uh, I don't think I was very good at playing a rogue. I disagree, sir. No, you're talking mechanically. It is a complex thing. Yeah, it's not an easy clad. I admire, and I had a lot of people who would say, okay, here's what you do.

And I admire people who can do it, but it was difficult for me. And I think it was difficult. I think if you're playing a game and with a bunch of rogue fits into dungeon crawling and standard stories, but in a narrative function like this, I thought it was,

it was hard for Trav to, to fit in roguery. And it was a, it was, uh, by virtue of how this season kind of was, which is to say like, there wasn't a ton of fighting.

There wasn't a ton of, of combat. And that's not a knock against it. It's just like, uh, that was not, that was not what we were, you know,

doing the season. Andrew asked about that. And the thing is, it's like, I think that I will take some responsibility. for that. It took me a long time to figure out, and I think I'm still working on it, how to make combat interesting in an audio format. I think that it is a challenging thing that I'm not good at. And so, like, I always kind of shied away from it because I didn't know how to do it well.

But, yeah, but Rogue is such a mechanical class. Like, they are the skills class. The Rogue exists to roll very, very, very well. And I'm glad I did it. I'm glad I, I, I, I, I, I tried it. And I mean, we always, at least I do, I always try to pick a different class when we're playing something that's, you know, D&D based just to, you know, to experiment with it and see what it does to kind of shape the character. Right. Justin and Griffin, characters. Yeah, I mean, Fitzroy, I don't really have another. I've enjoyed all of the, like, I liked playing, I liked my Christopher, I think his name, was his character, my character in commitment.

No, wait, what was his name? Shit. Is it Springheel? Tony? Tony Belloni was his name. His name was Tony Belloni. What about Dust? What about the werewolf in dust?

Oh, that was a good one. Yeah, I fucking really likes playing him. I don't know. I was so, I didn't plan for, like, the kind of. Errol Rye House. That's a hell of the name. I didn't have any design. on Fitzroy. Like I had very little intention while playing Fitzroy. I just tried to

make decisions based on how I thought that Fitzroy would make decisions. And seeing how he sort of organically turned out was a really fucking cool thing for me. Because that is one thing you don't get from DMing. When I was DMing, you know, both seasons I've DM'd at this point, you can't be necessarily freewheeling like that with, uh, with character. development just because you don't have the time for it. But with Fitzroy, I don't know, it was so, it was so cool to make decisions as Fitzroy and be like, oh shit. Like I didn't, I didn't think that that is where I, you know, where this character was going to go. And so, I don't know, Aero Rye House is objectively a much cooler name. But I, I loved playing Fitzroy. I genuinely did.

I'm very grateful to have gotten to play him. I think the most fun for me was, um, probably Duck Newton I love Doug. Just because Duck was a is very close to my heart as like somebody like I feel like his rhythms are that I really grew up

with a lot of people who are in the duck mold I think it's a fun character I mean I love like Chip Hugginsby and Pepsi Liberty and some of my other like Pepsi Liberty is my favorite character of yours

It's a good single joke character. You know what? I have been thinking about a lot in that, and it's something I've been thinking about as I go into, like, the next arc is, I think I've kind of cheated with characters that I've played to this point where, not cheated, but it's definitely like a form or whatever, but, like, almost every character I've played is someone who defines themselves as being outside the main action of the thing, right?

Like, you know, tacos good out here. The fear bog is someone who's like very much an outsider who sticks to like his own code of ethics before the narrative thrust of the thing. And even, even Duck who was sort of like arguably, you know, the chosen one of the chosen one, right, was the thing that made Duck interesting was his refusal to take the lead in the narrative. Yeah. It's kind of something I think I've leaned. on too much is like waiting to see what the story is going to be, what the other characters are going to be, and then picking someone who is like interesting in contrast to the main narrative and the other characters, rather than somebody who's like there to serve the base narrative rather than their own, their own interests. I think it's something

that I've leaned on too much in the past seven years. years. I don't know. Rick Diggins was a pretty far cry from what you're describing. Rick Diggins was not a Taz character, but would be my answer. Yes. There's there's a I can answer a bunch of questions all at once because a lot of people want to know about like what would have happened if the fear bulb had realized that Hieronymus was the dog. That's from Eric. As the new day, how do you deal with times when the player character made choices you aren't expecting? That's from Mao. There's another one from Katie on here. The thing is, like, I did not know what the next episode was going to be when we were recording any given episode. Like, not until we got to, like, the hog, like, heist stuff.

Did you anticipate us deciding to dismantle the Heroku Oversay Guild? I don't think I anticipated that. I think I had, by that point, I think I was feeling a lot more confident in just saying, like here is the problem, and it's up to you to come up with the solution. Yeah. Whereas, like, looking back at, like, the apple, for example, I think that that was too much of me saying, here is the problem and here is the solution. Right.

How are you going to do the solution? Yeah. Right. Whereas I think by the time we got to the problems with the heroic Oversight Guild and saying you need to create some chaos, I mostly just said, here's the problem. Right. I have a very quick. A lot of people asked what the name I had written down on the Fearbol's character sheet was.

It was not Gary. It was a Grimlo, G-R-I-M-L-O. And that was not really anything I ever planned on deploying during the show. I just wanted a name. That's not canon, it's not canon. It's just I wanted something that was kind of like a secret that he and I had. Your Glenn Close Secret, yes. made me feel more connected to him.

And so I had always called him Grimlo in my head. The boys had seen that because it's on my character sheet and they saw it in like D&D Beyond or whatever. But yeah, it was grimly. I also want to say, Andrew also asked how much did you consult with other DMs before and during the campaign. This is a great opportunity for me to say thank you to Satine Phoenix and Matt Mercer and B. Dave Walters and Tanya to Pass and Brennan Lee Mulligan.

and I'm sure I'm forgetting people, but like anybody who has done like DMing for stuff like this, I consulted because like, you know, there are people out there who have done it for longer and do it better than I ever could and to not ask them about it would be absolutely silly. And yeah, and they were all willing to give a lot of help. So thank you to you all.

And thanks to you for listening to the Adventure Zone graduation, it will always hold a very special place in my heart. I'm proud of the incredible little sparks and flames and lights of creation that radiate throughout the entire project. I think there's unique characters and people and stories that could only and will only exist in graduation, and I will always treasure them. And I hope that you take something away from as well. There's one last thing I do want to answer. When the Thunderman turned into their in real life Macquarie counterparts during the finale,

Did all the Hellhounds and Gary in order and the dragons turn into Travis? That's from Jasper. Yes, they did. It's all me in different costumes. But it's all me. Yep. It's fucked up. And they all had Travis's voice.

Oh, yeah. It was amazing. It was very scary. So one week from today, if my timing is right, the next season will begin, the first episode of the next season. As Travis hinted at earlier, we're starting the season out a little bit differently

with a world-building game called A Quiet Ear that is going to run for a few episodes as we sort of build the skeleton of the season. And I swear to God, it's so much more fun than that made it sound. It gets wild. It gets wild, and I think it sets a really fun and strong start for this season.

And super collaborative. We were sorry to see that portion of it. Yes, that's how much fun we had. Yeah, I got the idea from Friends at the Table, which did the same thing for their Marialda season, which is excellent. You should go listen to that. If you want to get an idea of like how that game works, go listen to that. I think it's just the first couple episodes of that season. It's fucking stellar. And that's what we're doing. I don't want to go into too many more specifics because on Monday, Max Fund Drive starts. Didn't really talk about that yet. And so, I mean, we'll have a lot more for you talking about Max Fund Drive because we are a pledge funded show. And we're on the Max Fund Network. And we've done this for. a long time now and and you know still still need your support to uh to to keep doing the show but monday we are also going to drop a trailer for the next season which will reveal everything and that trailer is uh is from mimi choo and they have done trailers for uh graduation and amnesty and uh they do incredible work and i'm fucking they have out done themselves they have out of

themselves yeah this is out of control so just to clarify we'll have that trailer on monday and then an episode Thursday, and then another episode the following Thursday, and then another episode that following Thursday. Yeah, so we'll have, I think, three weeks in a row of these world-building episodes, which are seriously very fun. And I'm so excited for this next season, and we'll talk more about it then. But I really have to say anything, like who's DMing? I'm DMing it.

Yeah, I don't know. D&D roles. Yeah, heavily. heavily added to, I've basically made a my own sort of add-on module for... Oh, I was just saying, D and the... Indy Woolf!

To the extreme! Very module. Yeah. Yeah. It's gonna be fun. It is. It is wild. It's very different than anything we've done before.

Thank you to you. The most characters that we've ever had in a... Oh, my God. Like, I've got fucking 500 easy. There's Jeff. There's Derek. There's dumb Jeff. Stupid Derek.

Big stick Derek. Smart Derek. Oh, he's a riot. Well, yeah, it's ironic. He dies instantly. Yeah. Episode one, right, bye. Thanks, everybody.

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