The The Adventure Zone Zone (episode)/Transcript

Transcript by the lovely volunteers at TAZscripts.

[TTAZZ theme song plays]

Griffin: Hey everybody, welcome to The The Adventure Zone Zone, a podcast about the rest of our podcast. We’re talkin’ about our own podcast that we make. It’s kinda like Talking Dead if the creators of Walking Dead talked about their own show and how dope it was, so it’s kind of a snake eating it’s own tail, but it’s also like a snake sucking its own dick. Kind of, technically.

Travis: Griffin, I love that you’re explaining this, like, like we haven’t been releasing The The Adventure Zone Zone on every off-week since we started the podcast.

Griffin: On the fuckin’ deep web, yeah. I put it up on the Big Gulp RSS feed.

Travis: Yeah, everybody’s been getting it, right? Like, I’ve been putting a lot of work into The The Adventure Zone Zone.

Justin: Uh, it’s MaxFunDrive. Should we introduce ourselves? It must be so, so weird for regular listeners to hear us talking with our normal voices.

Griffin: [laughing]

Clint:: ‘Cause we always do character voices, right?

Justin: Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Clint:: Yeah. Well, I got some surprises for you.

Justin: [deadpan] Oh, wow, I’m really looking forward to it. [deadpan] My name’s Justin McElroy, I play the role of Taako. [laughs]

Clint:: [chuckling]

Travis: My name is Travis McElroy and I inhabit Magnus Burnsides.

Griffin: Dad?

Clint:: My name is Clint McElroy and I am Merle High… church. Church, not tower. Huh-uh.

Griffin: I’m—I’m Griffin McElroy and I play the role of fuckin’... Klaarg, Gundren, Barry Bluejeans, Yeemick, The Director, Killian, Kurtze, Jenkins, Angus, Jess, uh…

Clint:: [doing a voice] Davenport!

Griffin: Davenport, yeah, that’s me. Actually, Davenport? Not a lot of people know this, is the guy from Wings. With Steven…him.

Justin: Steven Weber?

Clint:: Steven Weber?

Travis: Steven Weber?

Griffin: Steven W…

Justin: Travis’s friend, Steven Weber?

Travis: My dear, dear friend Steven Weber?

Griffin: Steven Weber does Davenport—

Travis: Who actually knows that this show exists. I told him about it once at a party and he was...

Griffin: That—I doubt—I doubt—

Travis: …I was about to say fascinated but I feel like that’s probably not true.

Griffin: I doubt very much that information may be stayed up in the—the spongy brain of Steven Weber. I doubt that information still exists in his mind sponge.

Clint:: It—it—it probably didn’t, it probably didn’t get past “ooh, look, they got those little weenies wrapped in bacon!”

Justin: [laughing]

Griffin: Yeah, that’s probably his priorities.

Justin: Yeah, if I’m triaging information for Steven Weber’s brain, I’m tossing out The Adven—the Dungeons and Dragons podcast in favor of pork-wrapped-pork.

Clint:: [chuckling]

Griffin: Uh, so this is gonna be weird. I didn’t—I was so excited to do The The Adventure Zone Zone because, like, I—I think there’s a market here for after-podcast discussion shows. But, typically in this type of medium, it’s not the people who make the shit talking about their own shit.

Justin: Right.

Travis: Well, can I make a suggestion?

Griffin: Please do.

Travis: What if we just kind of took turns asking each other questions and having some audience questions and—until we hit on, like, a conversation nugget. And then we mined it for all it was worth.

Griffin: Let’s dig for that nug.

Justin: Nope.

{technical ad break ~3:30}

Griffin: I do—I do wanna talk, though, it is the MaxFunDrive. That is why we’re doing this mid-week episode.

Justin: Yeah, let’s start there.

Griffin: MaxFunDrive, we are a member of the Maximum Fun organization. We have been for a very long time. We joined them with My Brother, My Brother and Me in 20...10? 2011? 2011. And we’ve been happily been a member for years. This network and the people who listen to it and donate to it have supported us and allowed us to branch out and do new stuff like The Adventure Zone.

Like, straight up, The Adventure Zone, it takes a lot of time to make and we kind of knew it would from the beginning and we just—we wouldn’t be able to do that if it was not for the donations and support. So, like, we—we’re gonna talk about the MaxFunDrive and how great it is to be a part of the network, but this show, this thing you’re listening to with your ears right now, would not exist if it was not for the Maximum Fun community and the MaxFunDrive.

Justin: Uh, so just to give you a quick run-down here, we’ll get more into this later. But if you’d like to give to the network, if you’d like—if you listen to just our show or a few shows on Max Fun, you can go to maximumfun.org/donate. We’ve got several different levels for ya. I wanna talk to you—let me just pick one at random here and let me tell you about the 20 dollar a month level. If you can pledge 20 dollars a month for the shows that you listen to on Maximum Fun, here’s what you’re gonna get. You’re gonna get the Max Fun adventure necessities kit. That is a- uh, sort of a multi tool, a paracord bracelet, some toilet tissue in like a travel container.

Clint:: Oooh!

Justin: And a hot cocoa mix. And you’re also gonna get a bandana with the original designs from your favorite podcast on the network, whichever podcast you pick.

Griffin: I’m gonna assume you’ll pick The Adventure Zone, and our bandana looks dope as fuck.

Justin: It’s a really good bandana, but! Maybe most fun of all is, you’re going to get the, uh… an archive. Access to a Maximum Fun archive, that has so much bonus content.

Griffin: It is a fuckin’ national treasure, book of secrets, dungeon of radio content.

Travis: I don’t think I’m exaggerating when I say I think it’s 75 hours worth of material.

Justin: It’s several days.

Griffin: Not just of our show. There’s not 75 hours of The Adventure Zone. That would-

Travis: No, but there is! I’m very, very excited and I hope that you donate so you can listen to- I DM the bonus episode of The Adventure Zone, where we created a whole new world, all new characters, um, played through a puzzle dungeon. It was my first time ever DMing ever in my life, and it was incredibly fun and I’m pretty proud of the way it turned out so I hope everybody gets to check it out.

Griffin: We call it-

Clint:: And you did a great job, son.

Travis: Thank you Dad, finally he’s proud of me! [Laughter]

Travis: I’ve done it! I’ve waited you to say those words, Dad.

Clint:: Sing “Papa Can You Hear Me”.

Travis: No.

Griffin: I’m just-I’m just psyched that somebody else on this podcast now knows how fucking hard this is.

Travis: It’s so fucking hard, you guys.

Griffin: Yeah, it’s really tough. Anyway. We call it The Adventure Zone-- Are we calling it The Adventure Zone Steam or The Adventure Zone Nights.

Travis: I kinda like The Adventure Zone Nights.

Griffin: Uh-uh. Okay. Uh, yeah, we’re trying to also figure out-- we should talk about this now too-- it was a lot of fun and we really liked that world and we didn’t wanna just like suspend it, and then maybe return to it after we’re done with this campaign? After the core Adventure Zone campaign. So-- do we wanna commit to this right now? Do we wanna fuckin’, throw our hat over the fence?

Travis: Yeah, I say we do it. I wanna commit to-- if we hit the maxfun goal of five thousand new and upgrading donors, we will do at least three more Adventure Zone Nights episodes this year. And now, those will be only available to donors, so if you wanna hear ‘em, you’re gonna have to donate. But we will do more Adventure Zone Nights.

Justin: The cool thing is, if you donate just five dollars a month for like, the shows you listen to on the network, even if you just listen to our shows, it’s like two hours worth of podcasting fun for five bucks a month.

Griffin: More than that!

Justin: I think it’s pretty good.

Griffin: ‘Cause you also get the stuff we did last year which includes the live show that we did at L.A. podfest.

Justin: Well I mean like two-- two hours a month of this show for five bucks. It’s-

Griffin: Yeah, sure.

Justin: -pretty good.

Travis: You pay more than that to see Deadpool. We break the fourth wall way more than he does.

Griffin: That’s true. And we say-

Clint:: Especially if you went every day.

Griffin: We make a lot more jokes about… wieners and boobs.

Travis: Well, uh-

Justin: maximumfun.org/donate is that address. {technical ad break ends ~8:00}

Justin: We’ll talk more about that in a second. First, I’d like to hear a question from dad.

Clint:: Okay!

Griffin: [silly voice] How do you play dungeons and dragons? I still don’t get it, I’m so-

Travis: [Yelling] How do dice work?

Griffin: Help me boys, help me boys—oh, boys, I swallowed all me dice! Oh no…

Travis: What am rolling?

Griffin: Oh dang, I got all my dice down in my pooper. [Laughter]

Clint:: Alright, that’s the first five checked off. [More laughter]

Griffin: I just wanna go ahead and like raise a concern that “I swallowed all my dice and now they’re stuck in my pooper” is not really a question as much as it is like, sort of a, cry for help.

Clint:: Well it is, but-

Justin: Declarative?

Travis: No, it’s not a question at all, Dad, there was no interrogative statement. It’s fact - you swallowed all your dice and they’re stuck in your pooper.

Griffin: Is the question “did I swallow all my dice and now they’re stuck in my pooper”? The answer is yes.

Clint:: Alright here’s the first one, off to a great start with this one. “Griffin, any advice for new GM’s?” Apparently general managers.

Griffin: New Griffin McElroys.

Travis: Game Master.

Clint:: “I am running my first campaign (long time player first time DM) and” - this is like a talk show - “and anything you might have would be helpful.” Lindsey is asking that. What kind of advice would you have for GM’s, which I can only-

Travis: Game Master.

Justin: No, Game Master is how you would refer to it in a like, an MMO. Like, somebody who works in like an MMO and like, logs in and -

Griffin: I don’t really understand like, for games like - so there’s, there’s lots of other RPG’s out there. There’s stuff like Pathfinder and uh, uh, I mean- uh- oh shit. Shadowrun, is another one. There’s like a ton of these pen and paper RPG’s and most of them use the term Game Master, not Dungeon Master, which I get, right, like, I think maybe we should adopt this terminology ‘cause how many fucking dungeons have you boys been in?

Justin: That’s true.

Travis: There’s the one.

Clint:: One?

Justin: Well I guess we’ve kinda been in like, an expansive dungeon.

Travis: The whole world’s a dungeon, you know what I mean?

Griffin: Yeah, that’s true.

Justin: Yeah.

Justin: And it’s a vampire. [All at once]

Travis: Yeah!

Clint:: Yeah!

Griffin: Yeah!

Griffin: It’s funny you say that, I get books sent to me for Polygon stuff, ‘cause I write about DND sometimes for Polygon and so the Wizards of the Coast folks send me those books. Maybe it’s for the podcast, I don’t know, I’ve never really stopped to ask but they just-

Travis: I get them too and I don’t write for anybody.

Griffin: Oh really?

Travis: Yeah.

Griffin: Oh that’s awesome! Okay, did you get Curse of Strahd? There’s a new, like-

Travis: No.

Griffin: They have these, like, campaign books that they send out and then like, you’re just supposed to read them and it’s a- it’s a really interesting way of doing it and I like perusing them, although I haven’t like straight up lifted anything from them, but they have like campaigns arranged in these books and then you like, read them and then you use them to lead your players to these campaigns.

And the most recent one is the Curse of Strahd, which is basically, like uh, basically like quest for glory four? The shadows of darkness. It’s just like, everything man, Frankenstein, vampires, all that shit, spooky stuff. I- that has nothing to do with anything, it’s just, you mentioning vampires made me think of it.

Justin: Can I just say if we could have a campaign where we meet a Frankenstein, I-

Travis: A Frankenstein’s monster.

Justin: Uh, no, a Frankenstein.

Clint:: No, a Frankenstein. Vic, let’s meet Victor.

Travis: Okay.

Griffin: Um-

Travis: Or like any Frankenstein, like his cousin, Steven Frankenstein.

Clint:: [Laughing] Alan Frankenstein.

Travis: “Please! Doctor Frankenstein was my father. Come on in!”

Griffin: “I dropped out of med school. It was a little intense.”

Travis: “I’m more of a musician. Do you like the oboe?”

Justin: Like, if-- Griffin, you’d just answer the question.

Clint:: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.

Griffin: No jokes!

Clint:: What piece of advice?

Griffin: I can’t like-- It’s- It’s hard to say because, what- what I do and what we here do in the show, like, I think it’s actually pretty different from what most dungeon master, game master people are gonna be doing, like, just playing around a table with their friends, because-- and we talked about this before, um, the folks who run like the official D&D podcast had me on as a guest a couple months ago and I talked at length about this, because like, I don’t think I do a lot of, like, proper DMing, ‘cause this thing is, as-- as much as it is a, like, actual play podcast, um, like, it’s also a very story-telling-heavy podcast, so there is like, there’s a lot narrative going on, and not a lot of like, for instance, long battles. Like, when I used to play D&D with a group in Ohio, when I was livin’ in Cincinnati, we would get together, and then like one night, one two hour session of us hanging out, would just be like, we get through a single big battle. And if we did that here--

Travis: Well that was also fourth edition though, when we used to--

Griffin: Fourth edition, yeah, it was-- it was, like, fourth edition was more of a tactics table-top board game. Fifth edition is, is more like about, I think, more about like, you know, I think creative solutions to problems and stuff like that. Which does move things along a little bit faster, that’s right Trav. But like, I-- I- you guys don’t get into that many fights in this podcast, right? And, and when you do, they typically aren’t prolonged. I, as a rule I try and keep them shorter than at least half the length of the episode, ‘cause I don’t think there’s anything particularly interesting about just getting into a big long fight. Um. Do you guys agree with like-- [crosstalk] I’m curious, I’m curious how you guys feel about that.

Justin: [crosstalk] Yeah, I, yeah.

Griffin: We’ve never really talked about that before-- [crosstalk]

Clint:: And we don’t, well we, we don’t really look for “conventional solutions” to-- [crosstalk] our fights.

Justin: Yeah that’s true. Like, like everybody’s on our dick about how we-- there was a big barrel-- [crosstalk] that, oh my god.

Clint:: [crosstalk] That red barrel is the albatross around our necks.

Justin: And people were like why, why didn’t they do it? And like some people were like, some people thought that they, like, it was like, a uh-- we were working around it like from a creative, strategic-- like, I mean or we just didn’t think that was the right-- like, we just didn’t listen. [Laughing]

Justin: Like a lot of times we just don’t listen-- [crosstalk] because--

Clint:: [crosstalk] We are not good at this.

Justin: It is really actually genuinely kinda tough to, and I’m sure Griffin’s doin’ the same thing many times over, but, it is tough to balance, like-- there are a lot of times, where like, if I was trying to win an encounter, I would, I would do different things than I do on the show-- [crosstalk]

Travis: Yeah.

Justin: [crosstalk] ‘cause it’s like really hard to find a balance between, like, okay I have to find something that’s like, funny or entertaining to do-- [crosstalk]

Griffin: Yeah.

Justin: [crosstalk] but like, makes sense from a gameplay perspective.

Travis: In real life, when I’ve played D&D outside of this show, the number of times that I’ve said, “Okay, tell me again” and if you take the number of times I do that actually on this show, multiply that by like ten. ‘Cause I’ll make-- [crosstalk] the DM just like, describe the set-up over and over again. And then I can do things like, pick out like, Oh! I’m supposed-- [crosstalk] to do this.

Justin: [crosstalk] Oh, god, I know. [crosstalk] It is so hard. It is so ha-- I’m like really, genuinely like, really bad at like imagining-- environments-- [crosstalk]

Travis: Yeah.

Justin: [crosstalk] in my head like, I think maybe the part of your brain that thinks of dumb shit to say may be the same part of your brain that imagines fantasy worlds. [Laughter]

Justin: ‘Cause like, I can’t keep two of ‘em spinning at the same time.

Griffin: Um, so like, all of this is to say, that, we do a lot-- I do a lot of stuff in the planning of the, the campaign and stuff. Um, to make it interesting radio. Um, and I-- you don’t have to do that when you’re playing around a table. And, I’m not saying one is better or worse than the other. It’s just like a different thing.

Some of the, like, people who have gotten more frustrated with our show--which is like totally fine--it’s all an expectations thing. Because if you expect us to just like, play straight D&D, then-- I imagine this podcast would actually be kinda disappointing. You-- the only like-- it’s just a different thing. And I think there’s something really entertaining about-- honestly that type of game, where the, the more actual-play, rules-heavy stuff, we can’t do that remotely. I-- I honest to god don’t think we could. [crosstalk]

Clint:: No, I don’t think so.

Griffin: [crosstalk] ‘Cause the, the amazing stuff that happens, like the, the-- my entry into D&D was the, was the, uh Wizards of the Coast Penny Arcade sessions that they would do. And then, like, at times, it would be hysterical when somebody like rolls a critical miss on like, the final hit against the boss, and everything just goes, shitty. Like, that’s, that’s some of the funniest shit ever, and, uh, you don’t get that when you’re playing remotely. [crosstalk]

Clint:: Yeah.

Griffin: [crosstalk] So like we have to do that too. So and-- I have not answered your question even remotely, like, I think, I think the most important thing for you to do is to just have, a-- the way I’ve structured this is to have a broad arc with micro-arcs inside of it. And just sort of like structuring it out like that is really helpful, because then you can let those micro-arcs be inspired by anything. Like, Rachel and I watched all of the Fast and the Furious movies. We bought the whole collection on Bluray and just like burned through ‘em in a weekend. That was Petals to the Metal. A lot of people thought it was Mad Max, it was actually-- I had written that like way before we had seen Mad Max. Although, certainly the similarities were there. It was all like, it was specifically the fuckin’ scene where Vin Diesel jumps out of the car to catch Letty in the air. Y’all know what I’m talkin’ bout, Fast-- [crosstalk] Fast 6?

Travis: [crosstalk] I-- I do. Yes.

Griffin: Like I saw that shit, and I was like, ba-ding! Like that’s it. That, literally that one moment from one Fast and the Furious movie was like, okay I’m’a do a whole arc about this. And then once-- all you need is that one, like, foothold, and literally the rest of the thing just sorta writes itself around it. I-- I think just like, not, not-- [sigh] --not adhering to the books.

Like read the books if you want. Buy the starter set and just read-- there’s basically, essentially a magazine-sized, like, uh, starter, for the Phandalin campaign. Which I’m really happy we used, ‘cause like, I was so nervous I had no idea what I was doing I had nothing written out when we started. I was just goin’ straight off that book, and three episodes in, I had-- I had a lot of stuff down, um, so like I don’t think there’s any problem with like starting out with somebody else’s stuff and then spiralling off into your own thing. Um, but don’t-- also don’t feel like you have to adhere to like, the book so completely, both in terms of like, the plot, and also like the setting and tone like the-- [crosstalk]

Travis: And like monsters and stuff. Do you like-- [crosstalk] adjust that--

Griffin: Yeah. [crosstalk] I don’t use any-- I don’t use anything from like the Monster Manual, I make all that shit up from whole cloth ‘cause it’s easy, it’s just like you come up with a thing and then you plug some numbers into it. It’s easy as hell to come up with your own stuff. And-- and-- uh, I think just sorta coming up with an idea and letting that be inspired by literally anything, like, uh, this, this whole Crystal Kingdom arc I was watchin’, uh, Alien and Aliens. And the idea--and it’s kind of spiralled off into something different, even from what that was--but I like the idea of this, like, sci-fi setting where you guys were being pursued.

That was like literally the whole impetus for, for Crystal Kingdom. And the fact that I really wanted to use a Vocaloid voice. But that’s what I’m talking about like those were two-- that was because the Vocaloid stuff was-- I was listening to a lot of, uh, Porter Robinson? Uh, who, who has an album called “Worlds” that has like Vocaloids on every track and it’s awesome. It’s like, [laughs] one of my favorite albums, maybe ever? And like listening to that I got inspired to do a Vocaloid voice and that inspired this arc, too. So like-- [crosstalk]

Clint:: And he was also one of the greatest artists ever in the Grand Ole Opry-- [crosstalk] he used to, team up with Dolly Parton, and uh-- [crosstalk] and Porter Davidson. (Quietly) whatever.

Griffin: No, that’s-- [crosstalk] different. Yeah Dolly Parton and Hatsune Miku [crosstalk] would get together and do some beautiful duets.

Travis: Can I, can I ask-- I have a question for Dad and Justin, can I ask?

Clint:: Certainly, go right ahead.

Travis: Um, so this-- Justin you had played once before and Dad this was your first foray into Dungeons and Dragons. When you approached character creation, what, what inspired you to make your characters the way that you did. Both in like, personality, and like the way that you decided to like, play them.

Clint:: Well for me, yeah I had never played D&D before, which, always-- [sarcasm] it shocks me how surprised people are, when they hear that. [crosstalk]

Travis: [crosstalk] Well you’re a big old dorkus.

Griffin: [crosstalk] Well you’re just a big fuckin’ nerd.

Clint:: I know! And I wear it proudly. Um, but I-- I’ve also played a lot of fantasy-based video gaming and a lot of-- you know I’ve been on, I’ve been playing WoW for like-- [crosstalk] fifteen years--

Griffin: [crosstalk] Let’s-- I wanna specifically ask about WoW, do you feel like that-- when I started playing D&D fourth edition I was amazed, ‘cause it was the-- that was my first time playing D&D. I was amazed at how much, like video games have cribbed, from this system. That has evolved over time-- [crosstalk]

Clint:: Oh yeah.

Griffin: [crosstalk] but like there’s some stuff in here that is just like, “well that’s in every video game”.

Clint:: Well, and I’ve been playing though-- I mean, I was playing Zork [crosstalk] when it first came out.

Griffin: [crosstalk] Yeah, and Ultima, and all those--

Clint:: And, and I think, you learn a lot of things at a real basic level. Such as, when you guys started talking about the, the roles you wanted to play and what kinda characters you wanted to play, I mean it became real obvious that we were gonna need a, healer, type, um, so that-- you know I started from there, and then I kinda-- I kinda look at and saw the other races we had and we wanted to try something a little different and-- [crosstalk] and--

Griffin: [crosstalk] If memory serves, you-- you and Justin kinda re-rolled at the end of the first arc because you-- I mean you also used like the pre-generated sheets but then, after playing for a bit, and you got really into the player’s handbook, you, like, figured out that you wanted to-- [crosstalk]

Clint:: Yeah.

Griffin: The whole “nature” thing was not how you started but it’s where you are now. And I’m really glad ‘cause like-- [crosstalk] that’s my favorite thing about Merle.

Clint:: [crosstalk] And, it’s like we, it’s like we said before, you know what we’re tryin’ to do is not necessarily be overpowering, the best players, winnin’ all the time, overpowering every battle. We’re looking for scenarios that are fun! and interesting, and I mean it-- and it’s a different kinda fun it’s, funny-- [crosstalk]

Travis: I mean, ‘cause really, three players is really not, a full team, you’re supposed to have four-- [crosstalk] four or five.

Clint:: [crosstalk] Right.

Griffin: [crosstalk] Four or five, yeah.

Travis: So I mean we don’t, we don’t really have enough to like, ball, you know, bruise in and like, smash apart everything.

Griffin: Sure.

Clint:: And I that, and I think that-- I really, it really came home when um, when we created the new characters for the, the, steam universe. That really-- [crosstalk] Then it was fun.

Griffin: [crosstalk] That was fucking great. Yeah.

Clint:: Then I was-- I felt it was a little bit more liberated, it was a little bit more, you know uh, “okay what do you wanna do that’ll be fun”, and I think that’s where we came up with those characters. Um, I have a uh-- [crosstalk]

Travis: Justin what about Taako? I wanna know about Taako’s inception, creation, everything.

Justin: Okay. So, Taako is-- is a character, uh, that I play on The Adventure Zone, who I largely improvised, everything, about Taako.

Clint:: Including the name! [laughs]

Justin: Including his name, as he was, created. Um, and I started doing the voice, for him, um, [clears throat], uh, and like, I don’t know where the voice-- it was basically my friend Michael Beck.

Griffin: [crosstalk] Oh my god, yeah it is!

Travis: [crosstalk] Yeah it is.

Clint:: [crosstalk] Oh yeah, that-- yeah.

Justin: [crosstalk] Yeah uh it’s just the Michael Beck voice. Um, and so my friend Michael Beck is Taako, or it’s like-- [Laughter]

Justin: his voice is Taako, so basically I stole Michael Beck’s voice for Taako. Um, uh-- [crosstalk]

Griffin: Sorry this is, this is an amazing revelation for me! And I imagine for the audience too that there’s somebody who, exists, and lives in the real, physical world that we all know, who kind of sounds like Taako a bit. [Laughter]

Justin: Yeah, I mean he’s basically like-- he doesn’t like, really act like Taako. But um-- [crosstalk]

Travis: No he’s not really an elf wizard. Wanna make that clear.

Justin: I had wanted to, um, I had wanted to play with Taako’s, like, sexuality? Like not in a way that was like, particularly prominent in the story, but, in my mind, when I was like, doing the character and like, had Taako’s, like, story, in my head, Taako was a-- was a gay guy. And I don’t, I don’t know why, that was just how it always seemed to me. And then when we brought up the-- when we were gonna bring it up in an episode, Griffin made the point that like, “Hey, the-- that backstory combined with the voice you are doing makes it seem like you’re doing like, a stereotypically, effeminate-- [crosstalk] gay character.”

Griffin: [crosstalk] Right.

Justin: Which is, which didn’t occur to me because I was doing-- [crosstalk]

Griffin: [crosstalk] You were just doing, you were just thinking, “I’m doing Michael Beck’s fun voice.”

Justin: I’m just doing Michael Beck’s voice-- [Laughter]

Justin: --who is not a gay fella. So I, I did not-- it did not occur to me that like those two combined like, oh, I could see where he was coming from. But like, in, in-- so that is, sort of like, the weird backstory behind Taako. And, and I did, you know, it’s part of why I wanted to play a woman character in, uh, the uh, or not a woman, female. Like not to get too Ferengi, but she’s Thoth so, she’s not a woman. Uh, you know I wanted to-- I like the idea of playing somebody who’s really different from me and has like a different perspective and whatever-- [crosstalk]

Griffin: You do that in video games a lot, too. Like we were playing Division together, and you were playing as a, as a black woman. And like just any-- I feel like any time you get the chance to make a character in a videogame, you usually like, don’t make it look like Justin.

Justin: I just don’t see the point in that like what’s-- [crosstalk] the point.

Travis: [crosstalk] You get to be Justin every day.

Justin: Can I be honest? Uh, a lot of it deals with the fact that in, uh, almost all character creation generators, um, I can’t make an overweight character. And I don’t feel like, if I’m gonna try to represent mys-- if I’m gonna try to recreate myself-- [crosstalk] on the screen, I don’t wanna create like an idealized fake-ass version of myself.

Griffin: [crosstalk] Yeah.

Justin: So I’d rather just like, play a beautiful black woman, who, like, who’s great at shooting guns at people-- [crosstalk] like that sounds amazing too.

Travis: [crosstalk] Yeah. It’s so funny to hear Justin talk about creating Taako because I spent so much time creating like an intricate backstory--

Clint:: [chuckling]

Travis: [crosstalk] --for Magnus.

Clint:: [crosstalk] You did. You sent the “Magnus Bible” about one week [crosstalk] in.

Travis: I-- it was like, four pages long and Griffin nixed it because I made it way too dramatic.

Griffin: It was extremely dark, like extremely, extremely, extremely-- [crosstalk] like, dark, and serious--

Travis: [crosstalk] But like, that was how much thought I put into the character, and so very little of it [laughter] has ever come up. But like, that was my like, “I know Magnus!” And then, I honestly, once we started playing, kinda felt restricted by it. And people have commented like, “I thought he was supposed to be like, lawful good”, and I was like, “Yeah, but that’s not-- [crosstalk] actually how I wanted to play it.”

Griffin: [crosstalk] Lot of people ask about, a lot of people ask about our um, alignment. Or your guys alignment. It’s like part-- [crosstalk] of the comedy--

Clint:: [crosstalk] [sarcasm] What’s alignment?

Griffin: Yeah, exactly! Like, that’s part of the running commentary, uh, in--in stuff like the-- I feel like the Reddit gets like, way more into like, talking about how we navigate the--the like, rules and ideas of the--of the D&D books, and this idea of like, “Well, I don’t understand like, are they--lawful evil? Like, they’re just murdering people that they didn’t really need to murder, there’s...[ends abruptly]” And it’s like, that-- I don’t, I don’t -- I think that’s a weird thing-- D&D Fifth Edition also introduces, um, this table of characteristics that is like, uh, do you guys know what I’m talking about? It’s like, “flaws”, and [crosstalk]

Travis: [crosstalk] Yeah-- “backstory”, uh, “flaws”, “beliefs”...

Griffin: uh, but it, it’s supposed to like, summarize your character in these four sentences talking about like, their ideals, their flaws, and then, I don’t-- I don’t understand why you have to put that shit on [crosstalk] your character sheet because it just seems like, h-brandcuffs, you know? {25:36}

Travis: [crosstalk] You know, I-- I just, Griffin, I just assumed that it was like, for people who were like, “I’m not good at creating a person out of nothing”

Griffin: Yeah.

Travis: “I need some kind of skeleton to build off,” ‘cause it gives you-- that’s where like, the option of like, “folk hero” came from, y’know? ‘Cause that idea of like, “Oh--” and like, I did it because I like to exercise every option that’s given to me in chara-- so when it’s like, “Do you want a trinket?” I’m like, “Yeah, [unison] fuck yeah I want a trinket!”

Griffin: [unison] “...fuck yeah I want a trinket!” {26:00} Yeah.

Travis: But then like, I start playing and I’m like, “Oh I’m gonna ignore half of this,” [crosstalk]

Justin: [crosstalk] Well…

Travis: because it’s not interesting to me to be like, “I’m lawful good, so at every [crosstalk] option I have…”

Griffin: [crosstalk] So I have to be good every time I…

Travis: Yeah

Griffin: Yeah

Travis: Yeah, like, that’s not fun.

Justin: Yeah. I think part of it is also the-- I-- I-- it’s to sort of, chain yourself from-- like, keep yourself from doing what you would instinctually do.

Travis: Yeah

Justin: ‘Cause like, my character’s-- like-- like it is not necessarily what I would be doing, you know what I mean? But like-- to have some guideline that you yourself have to be beholden to that-- that this idea that character is something immutable as height or skin color [crosstalk]

Travis: [crosstalk] I mean, it’s why I stuck with “Magnus Rushes In” be-- and-- I’m-- I try so hard not to be a puzzle solver/problem solver as Magnus ‘cause that’s what I, Travis McElroy, [crosstalk] love to do...

Griffin: [crosstalk] The-- the-- the characteristics, I feel like, that these characters have-- have developed, um, and Magnus, you’ve had the “Magnus Rushes In” thing for-- uh-- a-- a while now, and I feel like that’s still your sort of defining like… “thoughtless action”, like “total reflexive response” like, that-- that’s been, sort of good-to-go from the beginning, um, like, Merle, I really like how Merle [chuckling] has become like, this weirdly irreverent cleric?

Travis: Yup

Griffin: Like-- when-- when he discovers, like, Boyland’s dead body like, he cracks a joke and that’s the first thing he does, and also he has this weird sexual relationship with plants [crosstalk] like that...

Clint:: I look at myself as a lapsed cleric [crosstalk], so...

Griffin: [crosstalk] M’kay

Travis: [crosstalk] And I love that.

Griffin: And Taako like-- “Taako hangs back, Taako’s good back here,” like, that is-- great, like, you guys have these characteristics that I feel like are really great that wouldn’t fit on a character sheet. {27:34}

Justin: I wanna hear another question from Dad.

Clint:: Okay, this kinda ties in with what we’ve been talking about-- uh, there’s kind of a running thread that runs through a lot of these [chuckling] questions that I think-- that-- outside of, well, I think maybe applying to you and me, Juice, that-- that-- feel like we have had a lot more [chuckling] thought going into this than we have, “Is Taako…”, this comes from Jeff, Jett, I’m sorry, “Is Taako eventually discovering the recipe for tacos somehow the key to defeating a really really big-ass boss, whoever he or she may be? And if so can this really really big-ass boss be a representative of some [laughing] sort of rival food style such as Italian or American cuisine?”

Justin: Okay, can we…

Griffin: Can we ta-- alright…

Justin: The taco thing.

Griffin: [unison] The taco thing.

Justin: [unison] The taco thing.

Clint:: Let’s talk about the taco thing.

Justin: Okay, the taco thing.

Griffin:  Okay, let’s-- let’s dive into fuckin’ Tacogate, cause Justin-- [crosstalk]

Justin: [crosstalk] Okay….

Griffin: I didn’t-- I edit the show, it is, uh, the most intensive edit-- between both the audio and the video shit I do -

Clint:: [laughing]

Griffin: - like, I-- when I edit Monster Factory that is a half-hour production cut down from usually, like two and a half hours of video, and like, everything that goes into video editing-- The Adventure Zone is still a rougher edit than that?

Clint:: [chuckling]

Griffin: Um, just because there’s a lot of-- let’s call them optimization points, and not “Whoopsie daisies” and “Uh-ohs” and long pauses while we look up rules and shit. Uh, but there’s also a lot of overtalk we do on the show ‘cause there’s fuckin’ four of us, which is a gaggle-- of people, and during the Hodge Podge bit-- I think we actually got a bunch of questions about this for The The Adventure Zone Zone too so let’s address it now-- uh, Justin asked about tacos, Taako asked about tacos, uh, and the reason that we didn’t respond, isn’t because-- like, tacos don’t exist in the world-- I mean, to-- to open things up a bit, if I introduced this planar system that our real world is a part of, like, they do exist in our world, right? I can go eat a real taco whenever I want...so they do exist-- [crosstalk] that’s not the issue here…

Travis: [crosstalk] Oh, lah-dee-dah… [laughter]

Griffin: I’m just saying, well, I live in Austin… [crosstalk]

Justin: [crosstalk] You couldn’t right now, could you tough guy?

Clint:: Go ahead, go get a taco, [crosstalk] yeah!

Justin: [crosstalk] You think you’re so big, [crosstalk] eating tacos whenever you want!

Griffin: [crosstalk] I-- I-- I fuckin’-- I live in Austin; I could open up the window of my office right now and stick my head out and open my mouth and I’d probably catch a taco in it.

Clint:: They deliver tacos to your door like the milkman there.

Griffin: So, the reason I-- the reason I cut that out isn’t for any narrative purposes; it was literally because Dad and Travis also both asked a question at the same fuckin’ time,

Clint:: [laughter]

Griffin: and-- like Justin encircled back to it and Travis’ question was the more pertinent like, relati-- relevant like, puzzle-solving… {30:01}

Justin: And I don’t think I asked him about tacos, it was somethin’...

Travis: I think it was like, ground beef [crosstalk] or hard shells...

Clint:: [crosstalk] It was cows, wasn’t it?

Griffin: Yeah [general crosstalk] (no, yeah, somethin’, etc) {30:09}

Justin: [crosstalk] No...

Griffin: Uh, yeah, um [crosstalk]

Justin: [crosstalk] No, it was-- the thing about the taco thing was it was a dumbass fucking dumb, dumb joke that it-- that I-- that I came up with like in-- on-- in the moment? And I think, uh, a few problems with returning to that particular thread are; One: I don’t remember which ones I have, [crosstalk] Two:...

Griffin: [crosstalk] You have sour cre-- you got sour cream, you have the concept of grinding, um, [crosstalk]

Clint:: [crosstalk] There’s cheese!

Griffin: I think, you have the word cheese but you don’t understand what it means, and, uh,

Clint:: [laughter]

Griffin: A lot of people, this might be news to a lot of people who haven’t listened to, uh, the LA liveshow, which is a, uh, bonus episode, uh that you can get if you are a Maximum Fun donor, at at least the five dollar level, uh, [crosstalk] shells.

Justin: [crosstalk] maximumfun.org/donate

Justin: [crosstalk] Yeah, shells.

Griffin: Yeah, shells. Cause you [crosstalk] destroyed a-- a turtle, uh, with a fireball, and you got hot meat in a shell.

Justin: So it’s like… pretty close…

Griffin: You’re getting pretty close, actually. [crosstalk]

Justin: [crosstalk] I mean, pretty close, I...

Clint:: [crosstalk] Yeah, but you know what, it has turned into somethin’, we don’t want to abandon it! [crosstalk] no…

Justin: The-- the thing is, if we had-- okay so this is the really hard thing about this. The Adventure Zone is-- is a, sort of, a collaborative story-telling...

Griffin: Yeah.

Justin: - show, in part; it’s also though, a story that Griffin has composed, right?

Griffin: Right.

Justin: Griffin does know the structure of this. So like, things like this, if we were to ever have some like, big payoff for the taco thing; it would have to be something that Griffin and I came up with, [unison] together…

Griffin: [unison] Together without-- without talking about it, ‘cause I can’t reveal that [crosstalk] to you.

Justin: [crosstalk] Yeah. Yeah like-- it would have to be something Griffin and I somehow like, simpatico, or, Griffin like, open the door for me to do [crosstalk] and like-- like inevitably missed it.

Griffin: [crosstalk] Right.

Griffin: Which is something like, I-- I feel like conceptually we have kind of butted heads on this, not with that like us-- any of us like actively, y’know fighting about it, but it is-- it is really-- I want you guys to be a part of shaping this story, I really do and there have been times where like, your decisions have changed things both on the like, micro-arc-to-arc and the macro like whole-campaign scale:

It’s really fucking hard, guys, ‘cause it’s like-- just writing the thing is hard, right, and coming up with an idea is really, really hard. I think it’s uh, I’ve never written fiction before, in my life, I think this is the-- probably the most interesting way to start it? Because you’re not just writing a story; you’re writing a story where the fucking characters in your story, are, at times, fighting against the ends that you are trying to design [crosstalk] it’s...

Travis: [crosstalk] And there’s an even deeper layer than that, Griffin, where the characters are created to wanna do stuff and the players know stuff that the characters don’t, so like, I would do something but Magnus would do something different because of the character I’ve created...

Griffin: Right.

Travis: You know what I mean? So you have to deal with both me and the character.

Griffin: It’s like J.K. Rowling writing Harry Potter, but then like, Hermione was like “You know what? I don’t go in that door.” It’s like, “Well fuck, okay, well shit there was some dope stuff behind that door, guess I gotta write another thing…” Like, that-- that’s what we’re dealing with, so like, the taco thing, I-- I-- I-- I have-- it is a part of my plan on a long-form thing, I want-- I don’t want you to give up on it, it’s just like, it’s-- it’s hard incorporating that stuff fluidly into the-- the stuff that I have-- have also prepared. {33:28}

Travis: Alright. Let’s get another question.

Clint:: Alright, let’s do nuts and bolts a little bit. Quick question for Travis, this is from Jesse, thank you Jesse for taking time out from all of your many podcasts. Quick question for Travis, “Have you considered buying more types of weapons? When you come up against a creature resistant to, say, slashing, you could drop the ax, and equip a warhammer, or spear.”, Jesse asks.

Travis: Um…

Clint:: We don’t buy a lot… well I guess in the Fantasy Costco, right?

Travis: Yeah, we could, um, you know? I-- I’ll say this; it’s one of those things where, up till now, we’ve been moving forward pretty well, like I-- I know-- I like to joke about the fact that I don’t have any magical spells; in Fourth Edition, they gave like, fighters...

Griffin: [crosstalk] Every-- everyone was a wizard in Fourth Edition, like everybody had spells and powers.

Travis: [crosstalk] Yeah, you had the equivalent of like, magic fighting spells...

Griffin: Right

Travis: - all the time. And-- I don’t usually play a fighter, like in anything [crosstalk] I’m almost always a rogue.

Griffin: [crosstalk] Usually a rogue. Yeah

Travis: Yeah. Almost always a rogue. So, I’m never really that bothered by like, “Oh I tried to cut it with my ax and he’s resistant to like, hacking damage,” um, because then it’s just, that’s the-- that’s the twist. Also it’s important to note that I’ve never felt like Griffin was playing against me as DM when it was like, “Okay, your ax doesn’t do anyth…”. It’s not like, petty, it’s not like, [crosstalk] “Your ax doesn’t do anything.”

Griffin: [crosstalk] No, what I-- what I appreciate, and what I actually really love about Fifth Edition is: the class isn’t called “Warrior”, it’s not called fuckin’ “Strongman”... it’s called “Fighter”...

Travis: Yeah

Griffin:..and what’s great about that is, Yeah, They’re the best at fighting, and that’s not the like-- in-- in Fourth Edition, to go back to that, like, anybody could do like, a bunch of damage in combat. By the time that the fighter reaches like, I think it was like 14th level? They get to do three attacks in a single turn. They’re wicked-fuckin’ good at fighting. And I like that, like not [crosstalk] a...

Travis: [crosstalk] Not at special fighting skills….

Griffin: Right. Travis… that are like, “Okay now you do something, [crosstalk] and come with me!”

Griffin: [crosstalk] But okay-- what I think is-- what I think is interesting is I think, uh, a lot of RPGs are, like, everybody can do anything in combat. Everybody-- which I always thought was kinda sellin’ short shrift to the like, fighting classes of like, “Well they should be the best at fighting,” and what I like about Fifth Edition is like, un-- unarguably, the Fighter’s the best at fighting.

They don’t have as much utility like, outside of combat, and I think Fifth Edition kind of shines outside of combat a lot of the time, but if you get into a fight, like, the fighter is gonna lead shit and be really really good at fighting. Um, in terms of the other weapons stuff, like, I guess part of that is on me, although like, I feel like Railsplitter is so iconic now, like-- like [crosstalk] you look at any piece of fanart with Magnus in it…

Travis: [crosstalk] Well, and also, the thing is is like, I-- it’s-- it’s kind of nice compared to Fourth Edition ‘cause in Fourth Edition there were so many options that you could do as a fighter that like, I felt like it kind of bogged stuff down a lot of the time.

Griffin: Fights took so fuckin’ long in Fourth Edition.

Travis: Because you had to worry about like, “Well, when do I use my Daily, when do I use [crosstalk] my Encounter Power? Oh, should I use it against this person? What does it inc…” And now it’s just like, “Okay, I’m gonna tackle that dude and try to punch him in the face.”

Griffin:[crosstalk] Right. And also because Fourth Edition was kind of designed to be played on a board like a board game-- movement was a huge thing…

Travis: Yeah.

Griffin:...like, there were powers-- there were lots of powers based around like, slowing enemies’ movement, or increasing your own movement, or-- or freezing them in place, so that they couldn’t be in the-- the proper posi-- I don’t worry about movement-- it was the thing I struggled the most with, in like, trying to figure out how we would do this show remotely-- We don’t even like, screenshare a-- a game board, although there are some really cool tools to use that do stuff like that, like Roll20, and um, Tabletop Simulator-- there’s like some really cool stuff, although I doubt that we could like, [crosstalk] work that into our workflow, which is like…

Clint:: [crosstalk] We-- we don’t even keep out character sheets up to date, Ditto! [laughter]

Griffin: [crosstalk] Right, it’s pretty fuckin’ hard....

Travis: [crosstalk] Some of us do!

Griffin: [crosstalk] Well actually, I mean, what would be great is that those systems actually do that stuff for you. But, I-- I think it would be tricky for us to like, gather around computer software and do the stuff that we’re doing normally, um, but I also like how we don’t get bogged down in stuff like position and movement and all that-- all that jazz, um….

Clint:: Which, again, that-- that harkens back to: It’s great when you’re playing in person, you’re playing with each other...

Travis: Yeah.

Clint:: That is-- that is kind of awesome. ‘Cause then you’re seeing it all,

Griffin: Right.

Clint:: We’re working through an audial, uh, medium, and so it, we-- we, and we need to keep it movin’ so...

Travis: Yeah, and it--

Clint:: Which is one of the reasons I get asked all the time why we don’t go to the store, and why we don’t have to stop and eat, and why we don’t stop and get [crosstalk] water...

Griffin: [crosstalk] Well that’s just like, that’s-- that’s like, we talked about that episode one. There’s so much stuff, we-- we got a question about that to like, “I noticed that you guys don’t follow like, a lot of the, uh, a lot of the rules in the book.” and it’s specifically stuff around like, “ammunition”, stuff like um, there are [crosstalk] mostly…

Justin: [crosstalk] Spell components.

Griffin: Spell components! Right, there-- there are ritual spells, um, that you can cast by using spell components, which, we need to talk about this, boys, ‘cause it might actually change the game for you two, um, You can cast rituals using those components without having to burn a spell slot. {38:04}

Clint:: [“eh” noise]

Griffin: Hey that’s-- that’s good to know.

Clint:: [sarcasm] What’s a spell slot?

Griffin: Exactly, like, there’s so much stuff that we don’t do because, I think, in terms of it being, like, a resource-management game, I think it could be interesting - you have to survive this harsh world, so instead of just, like, getting you straight to the dungeon by shooting you there literally out of a fuckin’ story cannon, you have to, like, walk there. And along the way you gotta forage for berries. Like, I can see how that could be cool, but -

Travis: But all of that is fun as, like, an immersive, group of people getting together once a week in, like, your living room.

Clint:: Right.

Griffin: Yeah.

Travis: I don’t know that it would be super interesting - especially since one of the things that I have liked most about The Adventure Zone is, we’ve seen a lot of people say “I’ve never played before”, or “I’ve never had an interest in Dungeons & Dragons, and then I started listening to your show, and it’s kinda made me wanna play it”, because I think we don’t so much worry about the mechanics - like, I get asked constantly, about, like, rolling, and about my seeming ability to roll really well -

Griffin: [crosstalk] We have a question we can address right now, of how many times you fudge your numbers. {39:00}

Justin: Dad, can you find the question about fudging numbers?

Clint:: Um, the question about fudging numbers…[crosstalk]

Justin: [crosstalk] Is that in the list?

Clint:: Oh, yeah, yeah, um, I think...oh, like, [crosstalk] how much the dice--about the dice?

Justin: Oh, actually, you know what? We should stop and do a, uh, let’s talk about about the pledge drive --

Travis: Okay, teaser: you’re gonna hear about me fudging numbers right after this break. [crosstalk]

Griffin: [crosstalk] Yeah, we’re gonna get to, we’re gonna get to that--

Justin: We’ll talk about that - [crosstalk] right after the break. {technical ad break ~39:40}

Griffin: We’re gonna get to Travis’s 20-sided die that has eighteen 18’s on it here in a minute, but, um, before that, let’s talk about, what does being on the Max Fun network mean? For us, like, we started- we joined the network in 2011, they, uh, picked us up after what like, 30 episodes [crosstalk] of My Brother, My Brother, and Me?

Travis: [crosstalk] Mm-hmm.

Griffin: It was very- [laughs] they got in on the ground floor!

Justin: The bad floor!

Griffin: Huh? The bad, shaky, rotten floor. Uh, and because of the support we’ve gotten from the network and from, uh, the listeners who donate every MaxFunDrive - which we only do once a year, runs for two weeks - we’ve been able to do things like live shows! We’ve done like, fuckin, like 25 live shows for My Brother, My Brother, And Me, we did our first live Adventure Zone last year, we’ve launched other podcasts like The Adventure Zone, like Sawbones, like Bunker Buddies, like Shmanners. We’re able to dedicate more time and resources to it because of the support that we get from you all, and if we weren't a part of this network we’d probably still be doing fuckin’ My Brother, My Brother, and Me just with Rock Band microphones! [crosstalk]

Travis: And no joke, it- like, over the five years of being at Max Fun, this is my full time job because of listeners and donors and supporters like you, and it - [crosstalk]

Justin: But Travis is poor, and he has to fix- [crosstalk]

Clint:: [crosstalk] He has a horrible, horrible lifestyle.

Justin: He has a horrible lifestyle.

Travis: I live in a box here in Los Angeles. But it’s a super nice box, don’t get me wrong.

Justin: Yeah, fourteen hundred dollars a month, it should be!

Travis: Yeah! That’s actually underselling the price, but thank you.

Justin: That’s a LA rent joke.

Travis: But yeah, it’s like, it’s an amazing-- and it’s not only great for the support, and the ability that we’ve had to be able to grow the shows financially, but also just, the listener community of Max Fun is intensely supportive and wonderful and like [crosstalk]--

Griffin: It’s the - it’s the best in the world. Like, Justin and I both work in the video game, uh, industry, which has some, uh, let’s call it...Troublesome... Sects...inside of it, uh, and that just doesn’t exist here cause it’s the - it’s the - just across the board it is the coolest community of people ever.

Clint:: Was that S-E-X?

Travis: Yup.

Griffin: Yeah, it has some bad - there are bad sex in the - no.

Clint:: As your father I want you to immediately leave.

Travis: So, here is the thing- [crosstalk]

Griffin: That’s such a weird punishment, Dad!

Clint:: [chuckling]

Travis: If you are a fan of our shows, um, Adventure Zone and everything else on the network, you could become a donor for as low as five dollars a month, which is - it’s a really good entry point, I think, because five dollars a month to me is like, one nice cup of like, cappuccino or something, at a fancy coffee shop.

Griffin: And for joining at that level you get what I think is the absolute best reward, which is - hundreds of, uh, maybe not hundreds, dozens and dozens and dozens of episodes of all of the podcasts at Maximum Fun, including three bonus Adventure Zone episodes. Uh, the one that Travis led, we did have the LA Live Show, where the boys have a beach vacation kind of, and then the uh, prequel episode, which I don’t know that we’ve ever talked about, where you guys uh, first meet.

Justin: Well of course like, Dad and I like, remembered all of it, it’s part of our-

Clint:: Yeah. Oh yeah.

Travis: It’s not canon--

Griffin: Well, that is where we learn about Taako’s backstory, of being a traveling chef entertainer who accidentally poisoned a whole town.

Travis: Oh yeah!

Justin: Yeah.

Griffin: Do you remember that? That’s like, my favorite Taako backstory thing like ever.

Justin: I don’t - I mean, uh, this is gonna sound like I’m fucking with you but I - I do, that’s a big part of why Taako is the way he is, like he is kind of a self preservationist at this point. [crosstalk]

Griffin: We do try to keep the - like the LA Podfest, like I don’t think there’s much overarching character development stuff that happens in that one? Um, [all at once]

Clint:: But there was cool stuff!

Travis: There were giant crows, though.

Justin: There was cool stuff, yeah. [/all at once]

Griffin: Yeah, there was cool stuff in it, but I tried to keep the story stuff out of it as much as we can, I think that prequel episode - there’s some interesting character development, like, background stuff, stuff that is maybe not as germane to the whole arc, because it takes place like way before it, but um, some interesting stuff about your guys’s characters.

Travis: And you can get that for as low as $5 a month, get access to all of that. And remember, our goal is 5,000 new and upgrading donors. If Max Fun hits that, it’ll be awesome, and if we - if Max Fun hits it, we’re gonna try to release more of The Adventure Zone: (K)nights episodes.

Justin: Now, we talked about $20 a month, Dad, can you tell them about -

Clint:: What about $10 a month?

Justin: Well, $10 a month, yeah.

Clint:: $10 a month, you can get the Max Fun bananas. These are -

Griffin: Nope! No Daddy, no Daddy, no Daddy. [crosstalk] No, Daddy. [crosstalk, indistinct]

Justin: [crosstalk] Bananas?

Griffin: No, Daddy.

Clint:: Oh! Yeah. Bandanas.

Justin: Very good. [crosstalk, indistinct]

Clint:: Like the, yeah, Max Fun Bandanas, 22 to - I knew. [crosstalk] I was joking.

Travis: [crosstalk] I know. This is another behind the scenes thing, sometimes Dad pretends to be dumb but he’s not [crosstalk]

Griffin: Welcome to The The Dad Joke Zone Zone.

Justin: Either Dad thought that was funny, or he thought that said “bananas”, both are equally troubling.

Clint:: Is it not funny? Uh, all the art by Megan Lynn Kott, so it is really really cool. And you get to pick the show you want, so I guess we know which one you’re going to pick--

Griffin: Judge John Hodgman!

Justin: Yeah.

Clint:: Up to 20, uh--

Justin: We talked about 20, let’s talk about 35.

Clint:: Okay, 35, alright. 35 - ah, this is pretty cool. This is a travel tumbler. It’s a vacuum thermos, and when you go with $35 a month, that Max Fun thermos is there for you to drink your frosty beverages, -

Griffin: Or your hot beverages! It’s got a rocket - [crosstalk]

Clint:: Your hot toddies.

Travis: Or your adult beverages.

Clint:: Or your adult beverages -

Griffin: It has a rocket ship on it, which as you all know, makes the fluid inside taste way better.

Clint:: Yeah, and it has fire come out of the bottom for the hot beverages and is going into the cold vacuum of space, so it takes care of your cold beverages too.

Travis: Exactly.

Justin: Dad -

Travis: And it’s important to note that every you donate at, you get everything below it, so at 35 you get the thermos, you get the adventure kit, you get the bandana, and all the bonus content.

Griffin: Yes. More importantly, the like, you- you - well, I don’t know, I can’t rank your priorities, but like, you also support us, and just feel a sense of ownership over this thing! Like, we are all donors to the Maximum Fun network - which is like, silly if you think about it, cause like, we also, y’know, get the money you guys donate to us, so we’re weirdly donating to ourselves?

I try not to think about it. But we do donate to the Maximum Fun Network because like, we think what is happening at the Maximum Fun Network is radical. Um, I listen to like three or four Maximum Fun podcasts because I think they’re great, and I think the ethos of the network is really terrific. So you can, um, become a part of that, become a supporter, feel some ownership over, over the network too. Just go to maximumfun.org/donate, you can find out all the details and stuff there.

{technical ad break ends ~45:49}

Travis: So. Here’s the thing -

Justin: Wait, I wanna hear the question, what’s the official question. First.

Griffin: Why is Travis such a liar.

Clint:: Okay, here’s a question, this comes from Clay - “How much of the dice rolling gets edited out? The pace of the podcast makes D&D seem fun, not a bunch of cumbersome rules and rolling like I remember” which we addressed a few minutes ago, but I think this might be a nice way to segue into Travis’s skills at dice rolling!

Travis: Okay. So here’s the thing.

Griffin: Travis is great at rolling di-- he’s just really good - [crosstalk]

Travis: [crosstalk] Well, okay -

Griffin: Since he was a child, he’s just been rolling them bones, just like, 6, that’s a 6, that’s a 6, that’s a 6, I’m awesome.

Travis:  Hear me out. One, one of the keys - it - we always joke about being really good at D&D but one of the keys is know the strengths of your characters, what are you like trained in, what are you proficient in, and then do that and it’s a lot easier to have successful rolls. Two, as a fighter in fifth edition, you get like, plus seven bonus -

Griffin: Travis is what we like to call, min-maxed, uh, in D&D terms, which means that he is very, very, very good at a few things, and very, very, very bad at a lot things.

Travis: Yeah, I don’t do a lot of Intelligence checks.

Griffin: Right, like, I haven’t really introduced many like, psychic characters, who can like, fuckin mind flayers who can get deep in that dome and make you do things you don’t wanna do. [crosstalk]

Travis: They would destroy Magnus.

Griffin: If I did that to Magnus, that would be a guaranteed death, like, a hundred percent like, that’s -. So there’s things like - I feel like your Charisma’s probably not great, Intelligence probably isn’t great, Wisdom’s not probably great, - I don’t mean to slam you right now.

Travis: No, no you’re right, like, I’ve poured a lot into Dexterity, into Strength, and into Constitution, but like my Wisdom and Intelligence are like, super duper low. [crosstalk]

Griffin: So, a lot of that -

Travis: So that’s two, and then three: I will say that maybe one in thirty, I will fudge slightly, but only on-- [crosstalk] -

Griffin: You’re fired. You are banned, you’re banned from the game. Cheater. This whole thing was a sting operation, Cheats McGeets, there’s the door, take your dice with you!

Travis: Only on - Only on skill checks, and only so we - we don’t have to like, keep trying, cause like, okay, we need to like jump over a pit. Like, it’s clearly what we need to do, and we only have an hour to like, tell a story. It’s not interesting to listen to me like, attempt to jump over a pit six times.

Griffin: [crosstalk] Cheats. McGeets.

Travis: You know what I mean. That’s - I will say that that is the one and only time, like if I’m off by like one, I’ll say like, fifteen instead of fourteen.

Griffin: [crosstalk] Do you hear. Do you hear the sirens outside your door.

Clint:: And if I can, if I can part the burrito just a little bit, to point out something. Point number four: of the three of us rolling, Justin and I are together for this recording, so we have witnesses. We can keep each other honest. [crosstalk] And Travis is by himself.

Travis: [crosstalk] Yeah but also like- it’s not like I’m winning a gold medal, it’s not like I’m - what’s the point, like I’m not trying to cheat to win D&D.

Clint:: Travis…

Griffin: [crosstalk] The thing that I wish we could do-

Clint:: I watched you grow up, I played Clue with you -

Travis: I played Clue with you too! One-round old man!

Griffin: Yeah. This guy - [crosstalk]

Travis: How did you do it?

Clint:: [cackling]

Griffin: This guy. This fucking dude.

Travis: How did you fucking do it, Clinton. It eats away at me.

Griffin: We were on vacation, in a hotel somewhere, I forget where we were, and we played Clue, and Dad got it first round. I don’t know how - I mean cheating, probably, but -

Clint:: I didn’t cheat!

Travis: I learned it from watching you, Dad!

Justin: Don’t accuse Dad of cheating - [crosstalk]

Clint:: I am the patriarch.

Justin: I’ll fuckin re-roll every once in a while, this is a comedy podcast we’re doing, folks, not the fuckin Olympics.

Griffin: [laughs]

Justin:  Like, it’s a comedy podcast, I’m not juicing, I’m trying to keep the good fun flowin’ for you.

Griffin: The one thing I wish we could do, the one thing that would be great about like, playing in a virtual environment -

Justin:  I don’t make up rolls, by the way, whole-cloth.

Griffin: Huh?

Travis: Yeah.

Justin: I don’t make up rolls whole-cloth, it’s just like, if something is about to happen that would be particularly funny, like, I’ll sneak another roll in, to see if we can make it happen, cause that would be better to listen to, than like-

Clint:: We can do that?

Justin: “And then you don’t.”

Clint:: We can do that?

Justin: Dad, I have like literally lied about your rolls to the microphone for you, because you couldn’t figure out what - [crosstalk]

Griffin: Wow, so this is just like, rampant then. [crosstalk] This is just rampant juicing.

Justin: No-

Travis: I said, one in thirty-

Clint:: But- my rolls are so shitty!

Justin: Dad’s rolls are really shitty.

Griffin: Yeah, he’s very bad. Um, so, the thing that I think would be great, if we could use - I wish there was a version of like, Roll20 or Desktop-- uh, uh, what’s it called, Tabletop Simulator, where I wouldn’t want the game board and all that shit, I would just want us to have a shared environment where we could see each other’s dice rolls. And it’s not like, just because I, y’know, would want to fact-check you guys, it’s because I think there’s an inherent hilarity and an inherent sort of excitement that comes from everybody seeing the dice that you roll. Right, -

Justin: [crosstalk] Yeah, I agree.

Griffin: --Like, it’s like that craps mentality of like, really high stakes, and then when you see a, like Travis is doing a desperate last-ditch attack and rolls a 20, like a nat 20, like that’s thrilling and exciting, and we miss out on that just from Travis saying, “Uh that’s a nat 20”. Or from Dad saying like “Oh, that’s a critical failure.” Like, if Dad rolls a critical failure in an intense situation, that’s funny most of the time and we miss out on that. [crosstalk]

Travis: And not surprising.

Griffin: And not surprising-

Justin: And I would never fib about that kind of thing, like -

Travis: Me neither.

Griffin: And I’m not talking about that -

Justin: I don’t mean fib, more like a re-roll every once in a while - if I get a one, I’m gonna get my ass handed to me, like - I’ll handle that, sounds great.

Griffin: I’m less talking about fact-checking, I’m more talking about there is an excitement to this game from watching other people do what they do. And we don’t get that here, -

Justin: [yawning] You see, I actually disagree with you on this point, Griffin, because I think that if we could all see the dice rolls, we would be about fifty-fifty on whether we said what the roll was out loud, if we remembered to actually do that. The- if- I think by and large we would just forget and be like “Oh shit, I can’t believe it!” and then move on and like, forget to say what the roll was.

Griffin: [crosstalk] Yeah.

Clint:: I-- then let me be perfectly honest--

Travis: How much did we edit out-

Justin: Wait Trav, hold on.

Clint:: Let me be perfectly honest, I have lied about most of my rolls ‘cause they’re usually really really good.

Travis: Okay.

Justin: Yeah.

Griffin: [laughing]

Clint:: I lie about them being bad just for the comedy.

Justin: Yeah, just keep it coming, funny.

Clint:: Perfect 20, perfect 20, perfect 20.

Justin: [crosstalk] Uh, nat 20, yeah.

Griffin: To answer like, how much of the game process I edit out - uhhhhh...I? Uh, a fair amount, like I don’t edit out like, when you guys do- you guys so rarely- how many fuckin perception checks have you guys done? Like when I play D&D I’m just- you heard it in the bonus episode, every time I walked into a room I’m like “Perception check, I’m not gonna walk into a fuckin bear trap, Perception check, Perception che-”

Clint:: [crosstalk] Well but- but--

Griffin: Like you guys don’t execute the game rules very often, so when you do, [smiling] those precious few times when you do, I don’t - I typically don’t edit them out wholesale. All- I will edit out like rule checkups and math breaks - which are humiliating -

Travis: [crosstalk] and Dad spilling Coke Zero--

Griffin: --Dad spilling - oh, well no, I left that in the show, cause he needed to be taught a lesson.

Justin: Heh.

Clint:: Well- that’s- that’s an excellent point. Alright, I got another question. And this is one that - that we get asked a lot. {52:37} This comes from Andrew - actually a - yeah, Andrew, who said: “When can we expect a Barry Bluejeans themed dungeon explaining his dark and mysterious past? It could aptly be named ‘Barry Bluejeans: Origins’” - you’ve really thought about this, Andrew - “or ‘Barry Bluejeans: Awakening.’ [crosstalk]” Barry Bluejeans is one of the characters that has kind of caught on.

Griffin: [crosstalk] I- Why?

Travis: He was in the show for about 35 seconds!

Griffin: He was in the show for about as long as Yeemick - the gob - gerblin usurper - was, and nobody’s- nobody’s fuckin throwing parades for old Yeemick! Everybody’s crazy for Barry Bluejeans! Which I get, uh-

Travis: I think Barry Bluejeans, for me, represents the moment where we kind of all collectively broke from D&D proper-- [crosstalk]

Griffin: That’s a good point, yeah!

Justin: Yeah.

Travis: --where you were, like, naming these [crosstalk] like, weird, fake characters.

Griffin: His name was like Sil - Sildar - Sildar Hallwinter.

Travis: And you were like, you know what, I’m just calling him whatever the fuck I want. How about Barry Bluejeans.

Griffin: Can I… can I tell you guys where the - do you guys know the origins of the name Barry Bluejeans?

Justin: I know what it is.

Clint:: I have an idea… is it from Michael Ian Black and The State?

Griffin: No, no, no.

Justin: It’s from Viva Variety.

Griffin: Huh?

Justin: Viva Variety.

Clint:: Yeah, but he also played the same character on The State.

Justin: Oh, was he on The State, too?

Griffin: Uh, no that’s not where he’s from. That’s not where the name is from.

Justin: Really? I always assumed it was Johnny Blue Jeans.

Clint:: I did, too!

Griffin: No. Uh, it is from, uh, there is - I got… I’m gonna have trouble remembering these circumstances. There is a public library in Barboursville that our good friends the Minskers - I believe Chuck did a video thing to sort of promote the library and it was sort of a mystery that took place in the library--

Clint:: Oh my God!

Griffin: --do you remember that, Dad?

Clint:: Yes! I do!

Griffin: And it, it featured many of my friends from the theater we were doing, including my best bud Evan Minsker who [laughs] played a character I believe was the janitor at the library, who he named Barry Bluejeans, which I thought was the funniest thing I’d ever heard in my entire life.

Clint:: [laughs] See, folks, we don’t plan this out.

Travis: Yeah, we didn’t know.

Clint:: I had no idea… I never knew where that came from. I really thought you were going with the Michael Ian Black character.

Griffin: And then, every time I play, like an MMORPG to like preview at events like E3 and PAX and GBC and it’s being led by one of the developers or representatives… I guess, to antagonize them, when I make a character for those lead demonstrations, 100% of the times I name that character Barry Bluejeans, just to let them know, like I’ll take your g- I’ll write about your game, but I don’t have to take this seriously.

Clint:: [laugh]

Griffin: So, yes, that is the origin of the name Barry Bluejeans. And I guess, I think you’re right Travis… I think that’s probably why people like it.

Travis: Yeah.

Griffin: Like, why he is cemented, is because that was the point in the game where, like, okay this is how seriously we’re gonna take this.

Travis: Yeah.

Griffin: But, yeah, RIP Barry Bluejeans.

Clint:: But that doesn’t answer the question. Would we ever bring him back?

Griffin: He’s dead as fuck. Like, I don’t know how many times I have to say it.

Travis: He’s super dead.

Griffin: Barry Bluejeans… soul has left his body. He is no longer… he is gone. He’s gonzo. He’s dead.

Clint:: So as long as you’re DM’ing, he’s gone.

Griffin: As long as we’re talking about the classic days. I have written out. I don’t if you guys actually think this would be good radio or not. But I spent this morning writing out basically a full run down… a full recap of the show so far.

Clint:: Holy moly.

Travis: Okay, do it.

Justin: Can we close with that? Is that our closer?

Griffin: We can close with that… I don’t, I don’t know if people will be interested in hearing that, I figure like it may be-

Justin: Well, that way, if we close with it, then we give them like… they can just skip it, you know.

Griffin: Yeah, that’s a good point. But, yeah, we’ll save it for the end of the show. But I have a full recap here that I wrote down.

Clint:: So here are some fan questions, let me throw this one out: ‘Holy shit, is the voidfish the eater of everything’?

Griffin: No.

Clint:: [pause] Okay.

Griffin: [crosstalk, unintelligible] I wanted to get ahead of that, like, I don’t wanna drop any big spoilerinos here, but I feel like one of the problems is I have these micro-arcs, right? Like, The Murder on the Rockport Limited, that was a micro- that was an arc. That was one part of the storyline, and there’s stuff that happens in there that affects the broader campaign. And I feel like, maybe this is storytelling fault, but just like looking at some of the theories that are boiling up on Twitter and on Reddit, a lot of people are, like, kinda confusing the two, and I think there’s- yeah, it’s not - that’s not - that is not that.

Clint:: Okay. I love this one. ‘Do you have any tips on creating items for the Fantasy Costco? How should I walk the line between truly useful and overpowered? When the show first came out, Griffin talked about user submitted quests and dungeons, has that idea been phased out?’ No, at least not when it came to the items.

Griffin: The items, definitely. The dungeons and quests, I just can’t, like I just can’t fold stuff like that--

Travis: It’s just so hard to work those into the story arc.

Griffin: Yeah, unless, I had an idea for like - how we could do that as like one off stuff, but I don’t … I don’t… yeah, I don’t know. The items though, like, just don’t send anything like a sword that does a billion damage, or don’t send in something that’s like - I mean - if you wanna send it in as a goof, I’ll read it and laugh… Things that are like referentials like My Brother, My Brother & Me jokes, and stuff like that… I like that. I like reading that stuff, but it’s just not gonna make it in the show, because the items that I like are the items that provide interesting utility.

Travis: Especially, the ones that I like the most and the ones I’m most likely to buy are the ones that seemed very geared towards how we play our charac- so, like Phantom Fist, is a great example of like.. Yeah, that’s something that Magnus would own.

Griffin: But, I like the things that provide utility outside of the normal, sort of, loops of the game… stuff like, probably my favorite item that’s ever been submitted is the pocket spa. I love this idea of just like - from a storytelling perspective, but also from a mechanical perspective - you have a private - you have a secret room. I think that came out of, there’s an item called the mobile fortress, or something like that. And it’s a literal fortress that you press a button on it and it folds up into like the size of a credit card that you can put in your pocket.

Clint:: My favorite’s been- my favorite’s been Nitpicker. {58:19}

Griffin: [crosstalk] Nitpicker’s really great.

Justin: [crosstalk] Yeah Nitpicker’s pretty good.

Griffin: I mean the shield of memories is also like-- [crosstalk] fucking incredible.

Travis: The shield of memories is so great because one, incredibly well-detailed and creative; two, it’s something that I really needed, you know?

Griffin: Yeah. Um--

Justin: Yeah I think- I think somethin’ that has a cool gameplay construction is probably more valuable than like a joke.

Griffin: Right.

Justin: But just remember that like, the thing about Nitpicker and the thing about the shield, they’re elegant ideas that can be expressed really simply. And I think that that’s the, like that’s kinda the hook for those that makes those work so well.

Griffin: Do you guys- I feel like you guys forget a lot of the time, all the stuff that you have.

Clint:: [laughs]

Griffin: Um, I feel- I feel- well no I’m being- I’m being serious here because like, um, when Justin busted out the Rod of Switcheroo, the Wa- the Wand of Switcheroo to win the race--

Justin: Yeah.

Griffin: --at the end of Petals to the Metal, I was like, I can’t, like I was in disbelief that you remembered that you had that. Um, and you have like The Immovable Rod that you bought in the last one, which I think has all kinds of cool implications. Like, do you get- do you guys actually keep track of that stuff?

Justin: Oh I st- I did forget about that one. [laughs]

Griffin: Yeah see that’s, heh.

Travis: I- I do- I have- I, very detailed notes and character sheets and stuff, but, it also just comes down to like, I’ll have a really funny idea- like, for example, I have the- the Tankard, the one that like makes booze super strong--

Griffin: Yeah yeah.

Travis: --and like that just hasn’t organically come up--

Griffin: Sure.

Travis: --like I don’t know when I would use that. Or like the Lens of Straight Creepin’,  that let’s me like see where people have gone, but like--

Griffin: Yeah.

Travis: --that just hasn’t organically come up yet. But, I’ve got it so that like, when something happens, i can be like, “Oh this is the perfect time to use this”.

Justin: And as long as we’re like, talkin’ about it, like, I- I - I think part of the, um, part of the reason that the wand occurred in tha- in that particular sequence, and one of the reasons I liked that arc so much, is that I feel like by the nature of our show, there are sections of it, and sometimes like...parts of arcs that don’t seem like, th- that we don’t seem to have a lot of agency.

Griffin: Yeah sure.

Justin: And like- and I think that like--

Griffin: This last- this last episode- like we talked about this, but- after we were done recording, but there are some episodes that are just like…[sighs]. They are extremely narrative-heavy. Like extremely narrative-heavy. This last episode unfurls some shit that is going to affect, uh, it sort of sets the tone for this arc, yeah, but it also like sets the stage for literally the rest of the campaign through the end of this- this storyline. And it’s stuff that like I just kinda had to get out there, and it’s real- again, we talk about butting heads, like it’s really tricky to also give you guys agency in situations like that.

Travis: Can I- can I say my favorite moment out of The Adventure Zone so far? Out of playing it? I loved Petals to the Metal. I loved the- the-- [crosstalk]

Griffin: [crosstalk] Yup.

Clint:: [crosstalk] I agree.

Travis: --the concept of. My favorite moment was when the three of us were in Captain Captain Bane’s office, and he handed out drinks, and there was no editing in this, there- n- we- the three did not discuss it, we all independently decided that we weren’t going to drink the drink.

Griffin: Yeah.

Clint:: [Wheezes]

Travis: And it was, it was- like, I’m not even joking when like, I got chills in the moment because it was this very, like, you know, like, sympatico moment of, picturing this scene, and not trusting what was going on.

Griffin: And I think what was really great about that is it doesn’t come out of rolls, you weren’t doing- you could’ve done...this is- this is that- that scene I haven’t really thought of it that way Travis but it’s a perfect- it’s a perfect sort of, uh, like it’s a perfect little capsule of what this show is--

Travis: Yeah.

Griffin: --which is you guys- you could’ve rolled an insight check. Merle you could have used that- that earring that you bought in that first arc that gives you advantage on insight checks, to do an insight check on this dude to see if he’s on the level, offering you these drinks. You could've done an investigation check. You coulda done a nature check? To see if like, you could identify the poison in the- you didn’t do any of that, we just talked. Like I was doing a character, and you guys your characters, and we just talked, and in that conversation you came to the decision not to- not to-- [crosstalk] drink it.

Justin: Well I- well I think that you also got a- a- a very strong- to give credit where credit is due, it’s a good example of, um, like, storytelling--

Travis: Yeah.

Justin: --by implication, like, why, like we’ve seen enough books and movies, like why is this guy tryna to get us to drink something. Like--

Travis: Yeah.

Justin: --and it- and honestly that attitude gets us into trouble with this show--

Travis: [crosstalk] Yup.

Clint:: [crosstalk] [Laughs]

Griffin: [crosstalk] It do- you can’t- you can’t chalk that up to that because like, literally every other time, that I’ve set a trap, you’ve fuckin’ fell into it. I- like, I keep the kid-gloves on a lil’ bit ‘cause I don’t want you guys to die, ‘cause I feel like from a storytelling perspective that’s, just not interesting. Uh, but like, I- this might be rough for you to hear Dad, Merle didn’t need to lose his hand. Like, I was fully- I was 50/50 on whether or not you would grab that crystal. I was literally- I literally did not know which way that was going to break. Um, [crosstalk] so like--

Clint:: [crosstalk] Good. I’m glad you didn’t know.

Griffin: --you guys all realizing not to do that was like- that was really powerful, for me.

Travis: ‘Cause here’s the thing, frankly, I play Magnus in such a way that I’m perfectly willing to accept the fact that he will probably die. Like, I- I- I am not protective of Magnus ‘cause I don’t- I don’t feel that that’s a good way to play a fighter whose main characteristic is that he rushes into shit.

Griffin: Yeah, sure.

Justin: Yeah.

Travis: So but like, there was something in that moment that it was just like, yeah like I think we were all on the same page, not in the same room, like we’re not like side-eyeing each other and kinda going ‘I don’t trust this’--

Justin: Yeah.

Travis: --like we all just kind of went like, ‘Yeah, no, we’re not gonna do this.’

Clint:: Okay, that kinda ties in- and we have to honor Drew Davenport--

Griffin: Yeah sure.

Clint:: Drew- Drew sent this in. He says, ‘After the Grand Relic storyline ends, what changes can the listeners expect’. You know, you were just talkin’ about Magnus dyin’, ‘Will you guys reroll characters, switch who DMs, or add new players?’

Griffin: We’ve talked- so we’ve talked a little bit- ‘cause the- this storyline has- has an end. An I’m gonna be like- I don’t know if we’ve talked about that, that might be- that might be rough for folks hear, but, there is - there is- there is an end to what we’re doing in this universe. And I dunno if there’s like, a- a potential for a sequel or whatever, but I mean we’ve talked abou- I mean Travis has- now we have The Adventure Zone Nights, like we have another story that we can transition to. What we talked about though, I was really excited about, is each of us doing pilots essentially for our own thing, where we would do like, a couple of episodes, and we would take turns DMing coming up with our own worlds and stories and characters and shit, and then just doing a straight up and down vote for what people wanted us to do for the second season. I guess- I mean, if you wanna call it that.

Clint:: I’ve already got an idea about mine.

Travis: Yeah.

Clint:: That’s for real. I wanna do a- I wanna do a superhero one.

Travis: [crosstalk] And see ‘cause--

Justin: [crosstalk] I’m gonna try and make mine horseshit, ‘cause there’s no way I’m DMing, ever, [crosstalk] I’m not gonna- I ain’t doin’ that.

Travis: [crosstalk] [Laughs]

Griffin: [crosstalk] No but see that’s- that’s exactly why I want you to. Like I wanna hear what you would turn out. I think we all gotta do it, like we can’t--

Justin: Like, I don’t think you wanna hear what I would do.

Clint:: [Laughs]

Griffin: No, I absolutely do. If yours is like, we’re in a fuckin’ clown college, and like- I wanna hear that. I wanna hear- like I think that’s really neat.

Travis: [crosstalk] W- well let me--

Justin: [crosstalk] No it would be me looking around my office like, ‘And um, and then the big Bioshock poster comes over to you and he’s like, ‘What the guitar is goin’ on here?’’

Clint:: [Laughs] And the- the picture of Charlie Gale [?] comes to life!

Justin: Yeah and then my Abraham Lincoln bust is like, ‘I’ve got monsters in my pocket too.”

Clint:: [crosstalk] [Laughs]

Travis: Uh, well lemme say that, if you’re listening to this and you’re like, ‘But I don’t ever want this to end’, you- trust me you do. It would hit a point where we wouldn’t have new ideas for what Magnus and Taako and Merle would get up to and it would get stale. And like--

Griffin: [crosstalk] And like, it’s not gonna be--

Justin: [crosstalk] [sarcastically] And it- and if you really, really, really don’t want it to end, I mean if the money’s right…

Clint:: [sarcastically] Oh yeah, cause we’re whores.

Griffin: [Laughs] No, th- no, you’re not gonna fuckin’ George R. R. Martin me.

Travis: We won’t- we won’t end The Adventure Zone [crosstalk], it’ll just change.

Griffin: [crosstalk] No.

Clint:: [crosstalk] And we won’t- and we won’t kill off the Dowager, it’s okay, it- that’s fine.

Travis: I might kill off Magnus, I’m not above letting Magnus die.

Griffin: W- what gives me a lotta hope though, is like, the- the- The Adventure Zone Nights went really well, I feel like.

Travis: Yeah.

Griffin: Like I- I- I- I think any of us would be capable of doing this, and- and it’s still gonna be the four of us. So like, no matter what, we’re gonna...you know. It’ll still be the same...I think there’s like a tone that sorta pervades our show as it is now that would be- that would exist in it no matter what world we were doing, like, if I did- if- if we did like a- I wanna do like a Persona style like, teen mystery. Like, but--

Clint:: [Laughs]

Griffin: --I think we would still do- I think we would still have- it would still very much be like The Adventure Zone, in it. You know what I mean, like-- [crosstalk] I think, I think there is just no way we could keep this thing going in perpetuity because that would- that would- whatever ending that would have would be disappointing. Like, I- and its not going to be anytime soon, it’s probably going to take us, it’s gonna take us a while.

We’re probably close to the halfway point to what I’ve got written down now? But I have no idea how long these things take. The crystal kingdom arc has already gone like a couple episodes longer or it’s going to end up going a couple episodes longer than I thought it was going to take. So, yeah, there will be an ending, we’ve talked about how to get past it- let’s talk about the MaxFun Drive though.

Clint:: Ok.

Griffin: Let’s talk about those levels that are up there. Obviously, five dollars a month you get access to all the bonus content, the art, the national treasure book of secrets of content. At ten dollars, you get the show exclusive bandanas- which look really great--

Travis:[crosstalk] and the bonus content.

Griffin: --and the bonus content. Twenty dollars a month, you get the Maximum Fun Adventure Necessity Collection which includes a multi-tool, toilet paper, a badge, basically camping supplies. You also get the bandana and you also get the bonus content. Thirty-five dollars you get the thermos and all the other stuff that we talked about already. What if you want to go bonkers, Dad? What if you want to go zany?

Clint:: Like a hundred dollars?

Griffin: Like a hundo a month.

Clint:: Oh my gosh, Griffin, we’re not made of money!

Griffin: We’re not donating, you silly boy.

Clint:: A hundred dollars a month, if you do that, you have membership in the inner circle. That is our monthly culture club and I think you three guys know exactly what that means.

Griffin: [Laughs]

Travis: Yeah, so let me break that down for you, basically along with all the other reward levels you get, you also will once a month get some form of media or some kind of cultural thing picked out for you by a MaxFun host. It could be a book--

Clint:: [crosstalk] Exactly.

Travis: --it could be a movie, it could be music, it could be some other cultural media but you’re gonna get that once a month--

Griffin: Last time we did it, for My Brother, My Brother and Me, we picked the album Music Evolution by everyone’s favorite funk rap jazz fusion band Buckshot LeFonque.

Travis: --And it was awesome and you’re welcome. But you’re gonna get that along with all the other stuff. And at two hundred dollars a month, which may seem like a lot but let me first say that’s a lot of support [Crosstalk] that goes a long way-

Griffin: [Crosstalk] Hey gang, that’s just like seventy cappuccinos.

Travis: Just like seventy cappuccinos a month! It could really add some years to your life to stop drinking so many cappuccinos. But along with all that other awesome stuff, you’re also gonna get free registration for MaxFun Con 2017 and believe me when I say: It’s totally worth it. MaxFun Con is the most fun an adult can have in this world.

Griffin: Yes, we- but- those are--

Clint:: Legally.

Griffin: Yes--

Travis: Legally.

Griffin: --those are pretty high levels, we’re not expecting everybody to chip in a hundred bucks a month that’s- that’s unreasonable. Just like, if you like the show and you want to support us you know five bucks a month is fine. Ten bucks a month is fine. We- the support we get, the financial support, is great it’s allowed us to do more stuff with podcasting than I ever thought we would ever do.

Like, when we did two tours last year for MBMBAM, that’s- in my wildest dreams I never would have expected that that would be the trajectory that our life would take. But it has because of this support. So like the gifts and stuff are great, the money that we get to help us like expand and do more stuff is great but really it’s just like, the support we get for doing these shows and the- just sort of the symbol of you guys showing is like this stuff that you’re making, the stuff we like and want you to do more of it- that’s what means the absolute world to me.

Travis: There’s a couple more things that I want to make sure everyone knows about. One, we have challenge donors so--

Griffin: Yes.

Travis: --no matter how much you donate or what level there are donors who are committed to giving a little bit here and there for every new and upgrading donation. And also I wanna say that our goal of five thousand new and upgrading donors will not only help us- will not only ensure that we do more Adventure Zone Nights but after last year, where I had a new My Brother, My Brother, and Me tattoo design because we hit our goal, I’m now having--

Griffin: You’re not!

Travis: --I’ve got a Dungeons and Dragons design in the works, that if we break that 5000 [crosstalk]

Justin: [crosstalk] You mean Adventure Zone design

Clint:: You mean Adventure Zone?

Travis: Yes. It’s an Adventure Zone specific--

Griffin: You’re gonna get fucking--

Travis: --If we break five thousand donors.

Griffin: You’re gonna get a tattoo of Drizzt’s face on your butt.

Travis: Exactly. I also—What Griffin—what’s the deal with toast MaxFun again?

Griffin: If you tweet the link maximumfun.org/donate to your friends—you know times are tough and we totally totally understand if you just like spread the word about the MaxFun Drive, it means a lot, and if you do that while using the hashtag toast to MaxFun, you’ll be entered into a drawing for John Hodgeman’s favorite product, which we are assuming is a toaster, and I guess [crosstalk]

Travis: Well we don’t know.

Griffin: Well it must be a dope-ass toaster if Hodgeman’s a fan of it. And one other thing I wanted to talk about that’s kind of adjacent- MaxFun Drive adjacent- MaxFun meet up day March 22nd, 7:00 pm, whatever your local time is. Go to maximumfun.org/meetups, people are organizing MaxFun community meetups all across the country. You can go to that website and you can find out like if one’s happening in your city, if not you can email Stacey, that’s S-T-A-C-E-Y at maximumfun.org and set one up and they’ll addit to the page. Which is again, maximumfun.org/meetups.

Travis: So—

Clint:: Wait a minute, out of continuity, just for a second. Because I thought about this since last year, Trav would it take away from your tattoo or would it up the ante and add to that too if I agreed to do it too?

Griffin: No, no, no! Come on, what?!

Travis: My tattoo is very specific to me, it’s a [censored].

Clint:: Ok. [laughs]

Griffin: That’s really good.

Justin: Dad should be a [censored].

Travis: [laughs]

Griffin: That’s fucking great.

Clint:: I’m serious about this.

Griffin: You want a tattoo of a testament to your failure on your body forever?

Justin: [laughs]

Clint:: Yeah, I do.

Justin: Well, Ok, let’s not commit—

Clint:: [crosstalk] Ok.

Justin: --Let’s not commit to what the design is. But Dad will also get- we’re talking about two tattoos. If we hit 5g- 5k.

Clint:: I’ll do it.

Travis: If we hit 5k new and upgrading donors, me and Dad will get Adventure Zone tattoos.

Griffin: Oh my god.

Clint:: Yes.

Griffin: I love it.

Clint:: I will.

Travis: I have—so I have one question and we can— and then I think we should each ask Griffin a question.

Justin: And I will, and I’ll like up the ante even more—

Clint:: Yeah.

Justin: I’ll cash those check, dirty money, 2016.

Clint:: You’ll probably have to drive me back from the tattoo place, cause you know I get that thing about blood. Yeah.

Travis: [Crosstalk] Real quick—

Griffin: [crosstalk] Justin and I are just gonna go if we get 5g just spending spree. Live fast die young bad girls do it well! Live fast die young bad girls do it well!

Clint:[?]: You sound like a Dalek.

Travis: Now you’re on a jet! Griffin! Mark wants to know, and I’m very curious about this, would you ever consider one off guests do NPC voice work?

Griffin: Naw. I just can't figure out how it would work. It's hard--it's hard enough like just modulating my own shit and like editing that in in post is rough--like I don't...It would also like be weird because they'd get this--They wouldn't be having a conversation with you, right? Would I have to tell them what to say? To--like it's just...

Justin: It would’ve had to be something like- I mean like, some- I’m glad you did it the way you did it, but like- if we had gotten somebody to do the Crystal Kingdom songs...

Griffin: Yeah.

Justin: Something like that-

Griffin: Something non-discussion-based, something that’s just like a broadcast.

Travis: I actually have an idea for it, in Adventure Zone Nights.

Griffin: Okay.

Travis: That I’m really looking forward to implementing. [crosstalk] I don’t know how I feel about it now. (? {1:14:28})

Griffin: [crosstalk] I br- I briefly thought about reaching out to Hodgeman to do the Hodge Podge voice since that’s who he was based on.

Clint:: [crosstalk with Travis] What if he did a-

Travis: [crosstalk] But then he would have to do it with us, because…

Griffin: Yeah, it’s not- yeah ‘cause he’s answering questions.

Clint:: But what if we did a live podcast in New York and got your little “play buddy” to- to be on and play an NPC?

Travis: You mean Lin?

Justin: [incredulously] You mean Arthur Miller, Dad? [Everybody else laughs]

Justin: He’s been dead for 40 years.

Clint:: I had really- that was it, I thought if he took some scenes from All My Sons.

Griffin: [sarcastic] Yeah.

Clint:: It would be so appropriate.

Travis: Exactly.

Clint:: Yeah, okay, fine! Stand in the way of another idea.

Griffin: I wanna do this recap. But before we do that, we’ve talked about like, questions from everybody else. Do you guys have questions about the campaign, things you’re still confused about that you want to ask about- keep in mind that I’m not going to reveal any like, big spoilerinos or anything like that.

Travis: I- I have one Griffy.

Griffin: Hit me.

Travis: Have we- has there been a point so far where you were like, really super like laying out some kind of clue that our characters were supposed to pick up, that we just breezed right over that you were like, “Aw dammit, you guys.”

Clint:: And don’t say red barrels!

Travis: Yeah, don’t say red barrels. I mean like, story arc-wise, we were supposed to put together that the Red Cloaks were such-and-such.

Griffin: There have been a couple, yeah. And it- it’s, uh, it’s not like bad that you missed them or whatever. Because it’s like, I think that, uh- nobody’s gotten it right, like looking at the- the- the Reddit, or the Twitter or whatever, like people guessing at sort of the- the whole storyline because like, I think it’s impossible. There’s- there’s pieces missing that you’re not gonna get for- for a little bit still. Um, there’s some people who are like kind of getting a little bit… close? Like, to sort of the shape of the thing?

Um, but yeah, there have been things that have been said that really, to be completely frank, I’m mostly putting down so that whenever the thing is revealed, there’s at least some groundwork being laid for it. But it’s- it’s- I- I think you would have to be pretty… man, like obsessed with the thing to sort of put the pieces together. ‘Cause there have been clues- like I’ve- there have been clues about the whole… the whole campaign arc in each arc, to answer your question. You’ve- I feel like you’ve gotten some of ‘em, um, some of them you probably just- just- {1:16:35}

Justin: You know, I’ll tell you what I really struggle with is I think that like, I would be better a- at this, and the show would be better, if I like...went back and listened to it from the beginning.

Griffin: Well-

Justin: I just- I can’t- it’s like an exercise in egomania [crosstalk] that I just can not touch.

Griffin: [crosstalk] I’m about to- yeah, I’m also about to do a full recap, which might help a little bit. {1:16:52}

Travis: Mkay!

Justin: Yeah.

Clint:: But I do that all the time! I listen back to ‘em!

Griffin: Yeah.

Clint:: [softly] Oh my gosh.

Travis: Well I only listen to my parts.

Clint:: Ohhh.

Travis: So that only helps so much.

Clint:: Yeah, okay.

Griffin: Um, Dad and Justin-

Clint:: Yeah you guys keep talking about some other podcast we do?

Justin: Bullshit bullshit bullshit bullshit, my part!

Travis (???): What are those? [Clint:: I don’t know]

Justin: Bullshit bullshit bullshit.

Griffin: Uh, Dad and Juice, you guys have any questions?

Clint:: I actually have one.

Griffin: Okay.

Clint:: Was there something in your upbringing as the third child whose every birthday was ruined or a disaster that makes you take out all this anger and animosity on poor Merle?

Griffin: Um, I had a lot of people ask me that. During this arc, there’s a- there’s like- gang! There’s a-

Clint:: Are you workin’ through some stuff?

Griffin: No there’s- but there’s a re- there’s a story reason why you are the person being harangued. And it’s not just like- I’m not just picking on your character, that would be petty and little. There is a- there is a story reason why your character’s being harassed the most in this- in this particular arc.

Clint:: Well, and- but you’re also pretty strident about the rules.

Griffin: Oh, please!

Clint:: You’re pretty hard on me.

Griffin: I have let you get away with so much fudgin’. I don’t wanna hear it.

Travis: [crosstalk] You- you fudgin’ cleric-

Griffin: [crosstalk] You’re the fuckin’ cheesecake factory. You are a- you are a, like, tourist trap strip mall in Pigeon Forge just fudge fudge fudge all over the fucking place.

Clint:: I can- I can live with that. What about you, Juice? You got a question for ‘im?

Justin: Yeah, on, um...like, My Brother, My Brother and Me- which was the first podcast the three of us did together- it is very much a show that is built around...like, it’s an improvisational comedy show. So like we’re- we’re...creating structure and like destroying structure, like, as we do the thing.

Griffin: Right.

Justin: Like constantly sort of like, throwing shit away the instant it stops like, being funny or worthwhile.

Griffin: Yes.

Justin: Um, in- in the course of like, doing it- is it hard to, um...is it hard when the four of us are recording and you’ve got like something of a Bible that you’re working off of or- or a plan at least, in your head, like-

Griffin: I have a text document called Plot Bible in my- in my folders.

Justin: Okay. Is- is it hard to like, resist the impulse to not just like, throw a pipe bomb in it from time to time- or to...like, throw shit out in the moment because it feels right, like from a storytelling perspective. Is it hard basically is what I’m saying to have something that you are [crosstalk] beholden to-

Griffin: [crosstalk] Right, right.

Justin: -other than the exact moment [crosstalk] in the story.

Clint:: [crosstalk] I can think of a- I can think of a couple of times where I thought he had done that. I don’t wanna say what they are though.

Griffin: Yeah, well, what’s great is- and it’s been really really helpful and it’s really unlocked the writing of this show for me, and I’ve mentioned it earlier- is this idea of having a macrostory and a microstory, and adhering to the macrostory and letting you guys do whatever the fuck you want in the microstory. I would say you guys- any adjustments you’ve made to the, like, grand campaign? Like the whole thing from start to finish? Have been...not you making a decision that has gone against my plan, it has been more you guys suggesting a characteristic or referencing something that I then think “Oh that’s fucking great, I’m gonna add that to the thing.”

So it’s not that- you guys have done very very little to destroy or ever disrupt the whole campaign. You have, if anything, added to and enhanced it. And the s- the- the whole story, when it’s finished, will only be what it is because of the things because of the things that you guys have suggested. And to fully part the kimono, things that other people have suggested, too. And that might be-

Travis: Griffin, that actually leads to a question we got a lot, just real quick-

Griffin: Yeah.

Travis: People have asked, when this is all done, would you think of ever like, releasing this [crosstalk] as it would be a really good reference.

Griffin: [crosstalk] It w- I don’t- I don’t think it would be- no, I don’t think it works. Because it’s not like a campaign book. It’s not like the fuckin’ like Curse of Strahd like- it’s based on what your characters do it’s a story- like it’s a story. I have it written down like a book, and when you guys change it, I rewrite the book. But at the end of it, it’s still a book. It’s not a- it’s not a, uh, adventure guide, you know what I mean?

Travis: Yeah.

Griffin: Also, like, I also do a lot of fudging in terms of like character stats like- the- like Curse of Strahd, just to keep using that example, uh, there’s like a monster entry for the main boss of the- the thing and it’s like two pages long! And it like breaks down all the stats and like the saving rolls and like its characteristics and its specialties and its abilities and its spells and wh- I don’t do that for fucking anybody! So I feel like, I feel like there would be some pretty ginormogaps. Um-

Clint:: Well, and there are also other media.

Griffin: Yeah, sure-

Clint:: I mean people adapt stories into other mediums.

Griffin: Abso- Absolutely, but to get back to the original question: the macrostory you guys haven’t changed at all. But what’s really helpful about the way I structure it is that the microstory- you guys can go hog wild. The- the- I mean already like...the- the Crystal Kingdom thing has gone sort of a different way than I originally intended. Which is perfectly fine, ‘cause I think it’s a better way. The mystery that you guys solved- which that was the hardest thing of all, writing a mystery and then trying to get you guys to solve it. I was really worried that-

Travis: You mean in the train one?

Griffin: In the train mystery, yeah, I was worried you guys wouldn’t, like, just wouldn’t...get to it. And it’s not- it’s not- I’m not calling you dumb, I’m saying like I wrote the thing and I had no idea how easy or difficult it would be to solve. I comple- I think I bit my eyes-

Justin: You can’t- you can’t hint to it at all, like you can’t point, or like- you can’t even nudge us toward it.

Griffin: Right! ‘Cause I- I- I think my eyes were maybe a lil’ bit- I- I- I think I maybe overreached a bit? I’m happy the way it turned out but like, I think the mystery was maybe a lil’ too- too difficult. I think it was a little too [crosstalk] out of my hand-

Travis: [crosstalk] Well especially since we don’t have an investigative, like, rogue character-

Griffin: Yeah.

Travis: Whose job it is to like [crosstalk] solve puzzles and study shit.

Griffin: [crosstalk] And that’s why- that’s why-

Travis: We don’t play it that way.

Griffin: I intro- I introduced Angus as a surrogate for that stuff who could like help you out if you needed it, and he certainly did from time to time, but when- I think it was Justin finally kinda cracked the case…

Justin: Yeah, let’s never forget.

Griffin: It was a big sigh of relief, for me. So- but like- thing- you guys have done things that I have taken entire- the Crystal Kingdom Plot Bible? Just this Plot Bible, just for this one arc, is a- has a- is about...14,000 words now. It’s a- it’s gotten ridiculously long. But I will- I will delete pages of shit. I will g- highlight all, delete. Like entire- entire fights. There was a fight that was supposed to take place on top of the train, Trav, that you just blew right by.

Travis: [disappointed] Aw man!

Griffin: I know, it was gonna be sick as fuck.

Travis: Let’s circle back! Bonus episode! [Griffin laughs]

Griffin: So- but that’s what I’m talking about. An- and it’s helpful, I don’t know if it’s helpful for GMs in us- in- in...a broader sense, or just for this particular storytelling type of thing we’re doing, but preserve the macro, keep the- keep the big campaign going and preserve it and defend it as much as can. Change it and add it if you think you have ideas that are better but- but try to protect that macro storyline as much as you can, but while- while allowing your heroes to like… just go hog wild on the- on the micro level.

Clint:: Okay, let me be a dad just real quick before we get to the summation of everything else. Let me just tell ya, an- and I know the other guys- and Travis has gotta tell you st- Travis has done a great job on uh, on Adventure Zone Nights, whatever we’re gonna call it-

Travis: [excitedly] Adventure Zone Nights!

Clint:: Gr- I, Griffin you really have knocked it out of the park when it comes to DMing this. I think you’ve raised the bar, you’ve set the mark really high for us when Travis and I do it, uh-

Griffin: And Justin!

Clint:: And Justin. Justin’s never gonna do it.

Justin: [low and creepily] Never gonna do it.

Clint:: But seriously, I- the work you put in is, uh, is really obvious in- in the show. [crosstalk] And- and I think the work put in-

Travis: [crosstalk] And very specific to us.

Clint:: Yeah! And it adds to the- I think it adds to that flexibility that it is able to be that kind of story.

Griffin: Yeah. I appreciate that. It’s like...it’s- and I- Travis I’m sure you feel this way now too about Adventure Zone Nights, it’s like...it’s terrifying, putting it together. It’s really scary.

Travis: Yeah.

Griffin: ‘Cause you don’t- you don’t-

Travis: I went into it like-

Griffin: You were not-

Travis: Scared in a way that I didn’t think I could feel about presenting a game because I poured [crosstalk] so much-

Griffin: [crosstalk] To us! To your family members who you’ve known your whole life!

Travis: Yeah.

Griffin: Yeah it’s-

Travis: I was worr- I was not worried about people listening. I was worried about how it would play out because I’d poured all of this work into like building…

Griffin: Yeah.

Travis: Puzzle dungeon rooms, and I was like, “What if we start playing and they either solve it in 30 seconds or they never solve it, or they start playing and it doesn’t make any sense?”

Griffin: Yeah.

Travis: And like, it’s fucking scary!

Griffin: But it’s not- it’s not just that, we also can’t get- like we can’t ignore the fact that we’re fuckin’...makin’ up fantasy stuff! And that’s like- there’s a vulnerability there. You know what I’m talking about?

Travis: Yeah.

Griffin: Like when y- when you- there’s a vulnerability, an inherent vulnerability, and wh- in roleplaying, even when you’re dealing with this- literally, the le- the lowest stakes imaginable, which is my family, like and I don’t- like, I- I have very little shame when talking to and dealing with you guys, but even then it’s- it’s still really embarrassing but then at the same time, it is the most fulfilling- creatively fulfilling thing that I’ve- that I’ve ever done in my whole life. It really, genuinely is. Um-

Clint:: And Justin, daddy loves you too.

Justin: Yeah, I do my best. Whatever.

Clint:: Good job.

Travis: [crosstalk] Alright, let’s hear the summation!

Justin: [crosstalk] Let’s do the summary.

Griffin: Alright. Step in wherever you want, ‘cause this is- it’s, uh, it’s beefy. Um, but I feel-

Travis: We should probably let you just get through it.

Griffin: Yeah, maybe.

Justin: Yeah let’s just, yeah.

Griffin: Um- if I forget something, that I’ve left out. Anyway, here it is, the-

Clint:: [interrupting] Well we won’t interrupt you.

Griffin: Well no, please do if you hear something I’ve forgotten. The complete summary, of The Adventure Zone saga-

Clint:: [interrupting] Well it wouldn’t be right if we interrupted you-

Griffin: Oh my god.

Clint:: -because you can’t- you know, that way you won’t [crosstalk] be able to (he says something here at {1:26:00} but I can’t hear it under Travis)

Travis: [crosstalk] This is Dad’s favorite joke.

Griffin: Yeah, this is the- [crosstalk] let’s start with the prequel.

Justin: [crosstalk] It’s his favorite joke.

Griffin: I don’t have very many notes here. It was- “our heroes met.” That’s the prequel episode.

Justin: Done. That’s it.

Griffin: Uh, [crosstalk] Here There Be Gerblins-

Justin: [crosstalk] I’m just kiddin’.

[TAZ theme starts playing]

Griffin: Uh, started off with us adhering to the Adventure Book. You three had to, uh, prove your salt. You were hired to escort Gundren Rockseeker’s belongings from Neverwinter to Phandalin, uh, and uh, he had a ward named Barry Bluejeans. En route, you found that they were attacked by gerblins and abducted.

Um, you reached a cave, uh, that housed the gerblins that attacked them and you met uh- uh, Klaarg, the bugbear leader of the band, and Yeemick, his second-in-command, and were embroiled in Yeemick’s short-lived plot to overthrow Klaarg who, in turn, just murdered Yeemick. Taako charmed Klaarg? And, uh, we learned later, apparently permanently? To learn that Gundren had been kidnapped by a powerful wizard named the Black Spider, who wanted to use him to unlock Wave Echo Cave, a source of tremendous power near Phandalin.

You rescued Barry Bluejeans, who told you how to access the cave using Merle, who’s Gundren’s distant cousin, uh, using Merle’s blood. Uh, after fighting through the strange fauna and machinery of Wave Echo Cave, you meet a few interesting individuals inside, including Killian, uh, who is an extremely capable orc woman who uh, warned you not to meddle in her own pursuit of the Black Spider, and then you met the spider himself, who is a dark elf named Magic Brian, who you kind of befriended- and then summarily killed.

Uh, and then the three of you with Killian and a worse-for-wear Gundren Rockseeker entered the vault in the middle of Wave Echo Cave uh- uh, not before Taako finds a powerful umbrella-shaped staff on a skeleton wearing a red robe. Uh, inside that vault you find a gauntlet which Gundren takes as his birthright but it grants him a fiery power that he seems incapable of controlling. He flies from the room. You pursue him to Phandalin, stopping a convoy of orcs slavers, uh, and you free Kurtze, who is a young orcish boy, who uh- who’s campment had been destroyed by Gundren. Um, uh, you rescue him from a cage, although he leaves without thanking you.

In Phandalin, Barry warns you that Gundren has grown too powerful before Gundren, who is now just made of living fire, destroys Barry Bluejeans. You nearly talk him down from his rage but Kurtze, in retribution, shoots him with an arrow from outskirts of town. You three and Killian dive into a well at the last second as Gundren goes thermonuclear and Phandalin is reduced to a circle of black glass. Killian explains that she represents an organization designed to stop these things from happening and enlists you after you are able to reclaim the gauntlet, uh, without falling prey to its thrall. Killian summons a glass spherical vehicle from the sky which you ride up to a hole in the moon.

[Music stops]

Travis: And let me just jump in now and say, yes we caught that the thing with the red- uh, umbrella had a red robe. Thank you everybody that keeps like tweeting that at me.

Griffin: Well, okay, [crosstalk] but in their defense-

Travis: [crosstalk] Yeah, we got it.

Griffin: You definitely did not remember that.

[Madam Director starts playing]

Griffin: Uh, next arc was Moonlighting where you were introduced to the Bureau of Balance and enlisted. You emerged into a hangar on top of the other side of the moon, which you realize is fake. Uh, you got a wicked headache, you’re nauseous for some reason, but you’re aided by Avi, the hangar manager, who offers you a stiff drink. Make your way to- across the quad of this strange outpost and Killian puts you on an elevator in the center of the compound where you are- meet Johann, a musician that is lamenting that few people planetside will ever know his musical genius.

He introduces you to the Voidfish, a gigantic jellyfish-shaped organism whose body seems to be filled with flashing streaks of light. It’s capable of consuming information and removing that information from the world, save for those who drink its ichor. After inoculating yourselves you remember years of war and turmoil that you had forgotten during which nations, tribes, and uh, individuals fought for control over a few powerful magical artifacts.

The Bureau of Balance’s Director, a tall, older woman carrying a white oak staff who does not reveal her name, explains that there are seven Grand Relics in the world, which are items of unchecked power created by a band of rogue wizards called the Red Robes. Her organization, the Bureau of Balance, finds, recovers, and destroys these relics, which she demonstrates by having her servant, Davenport, a gnome capable of only saying his own name, put the gauntlet, the uh- uh, Phoenix Fire Gauntlet, which belongs to the school of evocation, into a large, spherical chamber, where it is pierced by beams of light and seemingly destroyed.

She offers you jobs with the Bureau as the Reclaimers, which is a sort of rare position, uh, dedicated to actually bringing those relics back without falling prey to their thrall, which is something few people can accomplish. After passing an initiation test, you are fitted with bracers of initiation and rewarded tokens to the Fantasy Gachapon, and its operator, the Artificer Leon, shows you how to get goodies out of that. You also are introduced to the Fantasy Costco and its owner, Garfield the Deals Warlock. You level up. [tiredly] Holy shit.

Travis: You got this, you’re doing great!

[Music stops] [Pan starts playing]

Griffin: Alright. Murder on the Rockport Limited. A relic’s been discovered by the Reclaimer Leeman Kessler, who was unfortunately murdered in the town of Rockport after loading his precious cargo onto a train, the Rockport Limited, en route to Neverwinter. You’re assigned the job of impersonating Leeman and seeing the train to its destination, at which point you’ll be able to retrieve the relic from storage. After a brief detour in a leech-filled swamp outside of Rockport, you make your way into this town of industry, which is apparently home to hundreds of people who look like beloved radio personality Tom Bodett. [Justin laughs]

Griffin: You board th- you board the train after learning the security measures-

Justin: I can’t believe- I still can’t believe you planned that by the way, Griffin. That’s a- this is just the craziest storytelling.

Griffin: Uh, did you guys know that’s on his Wikipedia page?

Travis: Yeah, he actually got asked about it on the show on [crosstalk] NPR. {1:31:04}

Clint:: [crosstalk] [in awe] No!

'Clint: laughs]

Griffin: Yeah, y- you board the train after learning its security measures. The relic is in the cryptsafe in the last cart of the train which cannot be opened without an hour of prolonged contact without a- from an employee of the train. Uh, you’re introduced to your fellow passengers on the journey, including Hudson, the engineer who stays locked in his engine car, Jenkins, the magical attendant who operates the Pleasure Chambers- there’s a kind of teleportation magic that can take you to any enclosed room as long as it keeps the door open- Jess the Beheader, a prized fighter and all around badass, Graham the hedge wizard, who didn’t end up having that many interesting traits, and Angus McDonald-

Travis: He was juicy! He was juicy!

Griffin: He had a juicy robe.

Justin: Juicy!

Griffin: And Angus McDonald, precocious boy detective. After meeting them, you’re investigated by Angus, who explains that he’s on the train in pursuit of a serial killer in Rockport who seems to be capable of tracking down objects of great wealth and collecting them from their deceased owners. After revealing this, you hear a scream and find a beheaded and behanded Jenkins between cars. Some sort of fiery crab monster destroys the crime scene before you’re able to do much CSI work on it. Uh, through a series-

Justin: I know you’re pretty sad about Jenkins right now, but just hang in there.

Travis: Stick with us, folks!

Griffin: For this next sentence, uh- you work through a convoluted mystery to discover the truth. The body was not Jenkins’, but the engineer Hudson’s, who was spliced-

Justin: Told you so.

Griffin: Who was spliced between-

Clint:: Whaat!

Griffin: Uh, portals by Jenkins’ teleportation magic. Magnus, uh- does a daring maneuver outside the train and gets rid of the whole fucking great fight I was gonna do back there. Uh, you fight, uh-

'Clint: laughs]

Griffin: -Jenkins, and throw him off the back of the train, seemingly to his doom. You recover the Grand Relic, which is the Oculus, which allows you to turn illusory images real, and with some quick thinking from Taako, prevent the runaway Limited from running into Neverwinter, uh, saving Graham, Jess, and Angus in the process. The An- uh, Oculus is recovered and destroyed.

[Griffin exhales a breath and the music fades]

Griffin: Uh, and then there’s a brief Lunar Interlude where you guys have a harvest festival at the Bureau of Balance. Um, some fun stuff happens, but really the only thing of consequence is you witness an event where the sun eclipses, the sky grows dark, and you see millions of glowing white eyes in the sky. Uh- there’s a deafening sound that inca- incap- incapacitates nearly everyone around you. Magnus eats a unicorn dick.

Travis: Yeahh! And it was the best part of the whole show!

Griffin: Uh, just a couple [crosstalk] more-

Travis: [crosstalk] Everyone agreed the unicorn dick joke was choice. He won a lifetime achievement award for it.

Griffin: Very good. A couple more arcs to go. Almost there, almost through it. [Battlewagons starts playing]

Griffin: Petals to the Metal. Another Grand Relic is discovered in the prosperous town of Goldcliff- the Gaia Sash, which gives its owner absolute power over nature. It’s in possession of a master criminal named The Raven. You arrive on the scene of a crime in progress and scale the Goldcliff Trust, which is under attack from some giant vines summoned by The Raven. Taako, after blinking into the Ethereal Plane, you see figures with white eyes seemingly spying on you.

After intercepting The Raven on the top floor, you- uh, she seems somewhat peaceful, and not wanting to harm any of you. She also seems kind of outta control. You’re saved by Hurley, a halfling monk, lieuten- lieutenant in the Goldcliff militia who seems to have some sort of relationship with The Raven, uh, uh- and calls her by her true name, Sloane. The militia captain, Captain Captain Bane, who’s also a Seeker in the Bureau of Balance on the secrets- on the secret level, uh- tells you to follow up with Hurley for more information. You learn that Hurley and Sloane were teammates in the Battlewagon Racing League, an underground racing league in Goldcliff where racers duke it out in the desert while wearing animal masks to hide their identities from, uh, spectators. {1:34:01}

Hurley believes beating Sloane in a race would convince her that the power given to her by the Gaia Sash is not infinite and tells you to sneak into the headquarters of a rival racing league to steal the Arcane Core, which she would use to power her battlewagon. You do so, murdering a couple of their members in the process, like Barbara, uh, and enraging their leader.

During that race you cleverly disable the wagons of your opponents, including the giant shark tank driven by said gang leader, and beat Sloane in a neck-and-neck finish. It's too late though - the Raven has been completely corrupted by the Gaia Sash, entombed in a tower of living vines and surrounded by a tornado. You crash your battlewagon into Sloane in an attempt to free her but to no avail. She surrounds herself in silverpoint, a poisonous barb with no known remedy and Hurley throws herself - uh, throws the three of you to safety, jumping into the fray.

You awaken in the middle of town. Sloane is holding a severely poisoned and wounded Hurley and she gives up the Gaia Sash before using it one last time to turn the two women in embrace into a beautiful cherry blossom tree. After debriefing with Captain Captain Bane he seems to, uh, insist that you drink this suspicious cocktail he's whipped up. You wisely refuse and see him taken over by a figure that seems to be a floating red robe. Under his command, Bane drinks his own drink and dies instantly. The figure explains that Sloane, Magic Brian, Jenkins and Bane all fell prey to a hunger for power that eventually consumes all, before he disappears.

Uh, another Lunar Interlude, where some developments have happened: you are promoted and selected as the organization's only Reclaimers. You get a new sweet dormitory and learn that your prior roommate Robbie has been arrested for unknown reasons. Angus the boy detective becomes -

Travis: Is Robbie Pringles?

Griffin: Pringles, yes.

Travis: Okay.

Griffin: Uh, Angus becomes your sort of personal aide while in the field -

Travis: Our girl Friday.

Griffin: Your girl Friday essentially. Um, you are given information on Captain Bane and told to feed it to the Voidfish as it’s custom for Bureau of Balance members who die to be forcibly forgotten. During your visit to the Voidfish's chambers you meet Lucas, a scientist and consultant to the Bureau who seems to want to study the Voidfish back at his lab, which Johann refuses. Your argument is interrupted by the Voidfish, who sings a mournful song which Johann swears he did not teach it. LAST ONE.

Travis: There's also a really nice moment of connection between Magnus and the Voidfish, I just wanted to - like, they touch the glass. [crosstalk] It's really nice, you guys. [crosstalk] (Some "Yeah"s, can't catch what else)

Griffin: [crosstalk] That’s really important, yeah. Uh, yeah, you guys have a nice moment. Uh, and then the Crystal Kingdom arc, which we're on now. It's Candlenights, which I've kinda forgotten. Um, you're celebrating in your dorm with your friends at the Bureau, giving and receiving presents, including a set of strange badges emblazoned with an unreadable type, given by an anonymous donor.

The Director is contacted by Lucas, who calls her by her real name Lucretia. He explains that he has a Grand Relic, the transmutation - the Philosopher's Stone, which belongs to the school of transmutation. Uh, but that something in his lab has taken it and used it to turn the exterior of his lab into pink tourmaline. The spell, uh, is still being channeled, meaning everything the crystal touches is also turned to crystal. His lab is sinking into the Stillwater Sea and if it touches it, the world will get crystallized and destroyed.

You're sent to his lab with another party in tow, a team of Regulators sent to arrest Lucas for his abuse of information. That includes Boyland, a gruff dwarf fighter, Killian, and Carey Fangbattle, a dragonborn rogue and sister to Jeremy Fangbattle, a bard introduced in the Flop House switchup episode. The team of Regulators is separated during the fierce winter storm. The three of you enter a conservatory, which has been crystallized, and are attacked by a golem which has self-formed out of the shards of crystal. You escape and hear a song sung by a synthetic voice, um, but you can't quite piece together what is going on there.

Um, you might have, at this point, but [clicks]. After besting a few traps, including the puzzle robot Hodge Podge, you meet Noelle, a helpful floating robot powered by a large glowing fuse in the middle of her chassis. Uh, you find a peculiar mirror in Lucas's private chamber, which shows you sights from our world, and find an abandoned bedroom belonging to Lucas's deceased mother Maureen. You meet a family of bugbears who Klaarg once belonged to, all of which have behavior modification chips which make them pretty chill, uh, and you also find a very dead Boyland who has been crystallized after having a smoke by an open window in the lab.

After a few more run-ins with the golem, which seems to only want to attack Merle, you regroup with Killian and Carey, and Merle is tricked by the golem, who speaks with a man's British accent impersonating Pan, Merle's god. Uh, he entices Merle to grab a crystal which shatters and pierces his hand. Magnus quickly chops off his arm to stop and save - [Travis: Heroically.] heroically, some might say - to stop the crystallization from spreading to his whole body. You are whisked into the medbay, where Lucas treats Merle's wounds and gives him a new arm made of soulwood, a living wood with psychic capabilities. He takes you to the Cosmoscope, a room filled with gemstone windows into other planes of existence, which he crafted using the Philosopher's Stone. The room is designed to show - to allow the user to study those planes and perhaps see what lies beyond them.

The seven of you, including Lucas, Killian, Carey and Noelle, make your way towards the elevator in the centre of the complex, but Killian and uh, Carey, turn on Lucas to arrest him before he can get closer to the Relic. The crystal all around you changes forms a few times and Lucas disables your whole party by activating a trap in your null suits, which is protective outerwear which has kept you from getting crystallized this whole time. Lying paralyzed on the floor, the golem appears in front of you once more. That's where we're at.

Clint:: And I would like to say that this is usually the point where I pretend I've been out of the room [crosstalk] and didn't hear any of that.

Griffin: [crosstalk] Yeah, fuckin’ thanks for not doing that, I appreciate it.

Justin: Yeah.

Clint:: That’s alright.

Griffin: That’s it! That’s the story so far.

Travis: Wow.

Griffin: I don’t know if there was stuff in it you guys forgot about, um, but I tried to include everything I could. Umm...

Clint:: I haven’t done shit in this show!

Griffin: That’s not true!

Clint:: I haven’t done anything!

Griffin: That’s not true!

Travis: Well he didn’t like, break down-- there’s like thirty-five hours of stuff that he just did in fifteen minutes, he left out a lot of our awesome antics.

Clint:: We do have antics.

Travis: Oh, do we have them? Yes we do.

Clint:: And goofs?

Justin: Alright, one last mention: maximumfun.org/donate if you like our show, if you like other shows on Maximum Fun, uh, network, we- we’d ask you to visit there, try to kick in what you can every month, it means the world to us. Again, for just five bucks a month you’re gonna get a ton of bonus content, exclusive stuff that you won’t find anywhere else. Uh, for ten bucks a month, you can get all that plus a bandana with your favorite show’s imagery on it (those are original designs). For twenty bucks a month, you’re gonna get the Max Fun Adventure Set, and that’s got like the paracord bracelet, the hot cocoa, and the multitool and-

Clint:: That even has adventure in the name!

Justin: Yeah, adventure right in the name, um, so if you can do that, and thirty-five bucks you get the thermos, plus all that other stuff, um, and again this is for new and upgrading donors, so if you’re already at one of those levels and you want the gifts, you’re gonna have to kick in- kick in a bit more. So, um-

Clint:: And we love our listeners more than those other guys put together.

Justin: Yeah and maybe you started listening to some new shows on Maximum Fun this year, and so you want to kick in a few more bucks, that’d be awesome.

Travis: And, and if you-

Justin: maximumfun.org/donate is the address to do that.

Travis: And if you do become a new or upgrading donor, be sure that you tweet at us so we can say thank you. Um, you know, let us know that you did it. And, the other thing that you can do to help out, if you already are a new or upgrading donor, and you’ve done your part: make sure to share the message of Max Fun Drive, let everyone know that it’s going on, you know, be sure to tweet about it, tell your friends, talk about it on Facebook. Um, you know it only goes for 2 weeks, and we- we really just want this one to be the best one yet! And I know we say that every year, but we want it to be the best one yet every year, so help us be a part of Max Fun. Come to the meetups, um, on you know, on the 22nd, I think there’s gonna be another live, you know, special to end Max Fun Drive on the 25th, so look out for announcements about that. Um, #ToastToMaxFun to be entered into that drawing. Um, yeah, just help us make this Max Fun Drive epic.

Griffin: Please.

Clint:: Well put, Scraps, well put.

Travis: Cuz I wanna get a new tattoo!

Griffin: Yeah, that’s- that’s uh, that’s it! We’ll have a new episode next week, um, which will be just another, regular episode in the Crystal Kingdom thing but we’re also gonna be talking about the drive, um, and then uh, we’re back to- back to normal, back to basics after that. So until then, thanks for listening to The The Adventure Zone Zone. I think it actually got a lot more interesting than I thought it was gonna be. I thought it was going to be super uncomfortable [crosstalk] the whole time.

Travis: That pretty much sums up The Adventure Zone though, doesn’t it?

Griffin: Yeah, I guess that’s a good point.

Justin: Thanks guys!

[Outro plays]