u/weedshrek

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oh incredible. this is the adbreak, but i have nothing in the transcript because there is no message from our kind and beneviolent dm cragus shackleroy. someone's maybe a bit in their feelings about how their campaign was received?

uh, ad break personal updates, as is tradition. i don't have shit going on right now. i just watched akira kurosawa's high and low for the first time the other day. sick film, obviously. but i watched it on hbomax, which means i'm watching the version that's part of the TCM. i did not have cable growing up which means i do not know much about TCM beyond that time when zaslov was looking to maybe remove it and a bunch of people got really really upset because there's a lot of important classic films in that collection. and they were right, hbomax has the best film selection outside of criteron's own platform probably. a lot of really good stuff in there. anyway, the point i'm making is fuck quinten tarantino. i'm supposed to be impressed he's aware of shit like lady snowblood when it turns out if you had cable some fuck in a suit would just pop up on your tv and be like "hey fam let me put you on some game, akira kurosawa's high and low is one of the greatest noir ever made, and here's why" before the movie starts. like its easy as hell to be a film guy if you had cable wtf.

also wrong season for it, but let me put you on some game real quick, i do a secret santa with my friends and we use elfster to organize, which includes giving you space to provide gift ideas or prompts (eg, "i like loungewear, i am a size medium") to help your secret santa shop for you. last year one of my prompts was "imagine you're doing the criterion closet, what's the movie you're leaving with" and got House (1977, dir. Nobuhiko Obayashi) from my friend, which is lit as fuck. I actually haven't seen it yet because my PS4 isn't playing blu-ray for some reason. but then i learned its also on hbomax and also i got a blu-ray player since then so i gotta check out this damn movie. speaking of the criteron collection, watch Saving Face. fuck crazy rich asians, this is what a real chinese-american rom-com looks like

NHRL changed their format slightly this year which means this month we got a double feature, their usual monthly qualifier tournament, but now also the first Pro Tour tournament, which i think has higher cash prizes, and requires you to have won a previous monthly bracket in order to qualify. the quals here are a round robin 3-matchup fight, which means that there is SEVEN HOURS of fights before the bracket is settled, which is a real fucking treat for me, let me tell you.

>Travis: Now, before the Firbolg‘s question session, the Thundermen have a date with the battlegrounds. As the three of you approach, you see the hero and villain trainer, Frostus ―Crush‖ Crushman, sitting in the center of the battlegrounds. All three of you, make a history check for me.

>Justin: Sorry, my dice are frozen to my desk from disuse. There‘s a thick layer of dust on them I have to—

>Travis: Hey, listen, y'know, some episodes are about action, and some episodes, you just need to do a little character building, okay Justin?

https://preview.redd.it/xxhhys2i3j2h1.png?width=1160&format=png&auto=webp&s=a0afa7cbf238f849f6ddff70fbad2eec34279c99

frostus is a stupid fucking name, also.

>Travis: Okay. So, I'm going to say [based on a history check], uh, that uh, Argo and… well, actually, I know why Argo knows this. Because in the first episode, it was established that Argo was a fan of Jimson and Crush‘s time in the arena. And so, I assume that, uh, Argo has been talking about the trainers in the dormitory. So, all three of you know this. Frostus ―Crush‖ Crushman is a former arena champion in the heavyweight division. He is a silver Dragonborn, and he fought with unbridled ferocity and never lost a match. And you can be certain that he was undefeated, because every fight in the arena is to the death, and he is not dead. After eight years, he was—

>Clint: [laughs]

>Travis: Thank you, Dad.

>Clint: That‘s some solid proof!

>Travis: Thank you very much. After eight years, he was allowed to retire, and word on the street is that he was actually forced to retire, because everyone was too afraid to face the blood-soaked, silver-scaled monster. Now, you know that, uh, Jimson was also an arena champion, but he was in the featherweight division. You also know that the two of them are married, and met during their time in the arena. But currently—

>Griffin: So I'm guessing they never fought each other.

>Travis: Correct.

>Griffin: Or maybe that‘s a—

>Travis: They were in different weight classes. Yes yes yes.

>Griffin: A wild story. Okay.

>Travis: And uh, so, uh, currently, Crush appears to be meditating. You also see, standing placidly to the side of the field, a young looking, silver-haired elf woman. And Argo, you recognize her as the same elven woman from the night you were initiated into the Unbroken Chain.

incredible stuff. i checked the transcript, clint did make a joke about being big fans of these two npcs. and so of course that is the fucking thing travis has perfect recall of. also a weird roll arbitration but its for lore so who cares.

speaking of lore, wots all dis then. what is the arena and why does it exist, because you have firmly and explicitly established that the only form of entertainment left in nua is your stupid ass heroes and villains. why would, by all accounts, a gladiator (more on this in a second) be hired to teach performers how to stage fight when his entire experience in combat is how to inflict deadly harm onto another person.

so just a second ago i called him a gladiator, because that's the closest well known pop culture touchstone we have for an arena-based entertainment combat to the death. couple of immediately weird things crop up however. why are there weight classes? we have weight classes in boxing and other combat sports because the point is to demonstrate combat skill in as fair of an environment as possible (and also because a large disparity in weight can lead to, you know, death). but when the selling point is vicious butchery....

also like, the reason gladiator combat has remained so captured in the cultural imagination is because there's a certain level of romanticism to it, right? like the idea that you have this mix of unwilling slaves, poor people, and "elite" gloryhounds, all mixed up in lethal combat on the field, and interpersonal politics between each fighter and then their respective patrons, is interesting. you get storylines like the slave who can fight good enough, can be popular enough, to win their freedom from the pits. you have slave revolts. you have the drama of the emperor deciding your fate at the end of a bout. so what if you stripped away all of that and there's just some sort of death combat arena that people participate in for......reasons. and this guy got forced into early retirement for being too good at fighting (because here, obviously, the fighters are free agents who get to pick their own matchups i guess). its just a logistical clusterfuck.

and like he gives the game away there at the end-- the reason he's invented weight class is because he thinks its romantic to make a love story out of voluntary death fights. but then that doesn't make sense if every match ends in a death (hey you notice how romans were doing shit like having guys fight lions because its actually really stupid to invest a ton of time and money training up a guy if every single bout is a good chance that very expensive investment will die?), so, instead of retooling the meetcute, he adds weight classes that don't make sense.

>Griffin: A wild story. Okay.

>Crush: Ah. Well, well, well. If it isn't the fancy lad turned villain, and his two buddies. Hello, three of you.

>Fitzroy: Sneak attack!

>Crush: Okay.

...okay counter: 35? sure. let's call it 35. none of you fucks are keeping me honest.

there remains this odd unaccounted for tension within this setting where travis can't decide how big the school is (even though he definitely already established that). is the school so big that crush cannot remember every student's name, in which case, why is he so up to date on fitzroy's personal academic journey, or is this small enough that everyone knows each other's business, in which case, why would your teacher not call you by your name.

griffin joking about attacking one of travis's npcs goes about as well as you'd think.

>Travis: You wanna roll against Crush and make a sneak attack?

>Griffin: Yeah!

>Travis: Okay, go for it.

>Griffin: 17!

>Travis: No.

>Griffin: What am I rolling—am I rolling—am I adding my, like, combat mod?

>Travis: Uh—

>Griffin: Yeah, that‘s a 23! Sneak attack! Hya!

>Travis: Okay, roll damage.

>Griffin: Fuck yeah. Sneak attack!

>Travis: Wait, you don‘t have sneak attack!

>Griffin: I mean, I just did it fast.

>Travis: You were just doing a surprise attack.

>Travis: He‘s always ready for attack. You don‘t have sneak attack. You're not allowed to sneak attack.

>Griffin: Okay…

>Travis: Um, he sees you try to sneak attack—

>Griffin: I pull back—I pull back at the last second. I like, stop the maul, like, an inch from his face like…

>Fitzroy: I could‘a. Now who‘s the teacher?

>Travis: And he doesn‘t blink. He doesn‘t flinch.

>Fitzroy: Damn, that‘s cool!

>Travis: Yeah, it‘s real cool. Everyone knows it‘s cool.

and then:

>Argo: Sneak attack!

>Crush: Okay. I'm standing right here looking at all three of you, and you're saying out loud, ‗sneak attack.‘ Um, so, this is going to be lesson number one. If you're going—

>Argo: I was trying to encourage—I was trying to encourage Fitzroy to try it again.

>Crush: Sure. If you're going to sneak attack – and this is just kind of basic 101 stuff – don‘t yell ‗sneak attack‘ before you do it.

this doesn't make any sense mechanically OR narratively because you absolutely can yell something when you sucker punch someone? and they will still get sucker punched. he's always doing shit like this. smarmily being like "lesson time" and then the lesson is either blindingly obvious or else not tethered in reality, like 'check every lock for a booby trap'. this is because travis doesn't know anything about anything.

>Crush: We‘re gonna go two rounds, you three versus me, so I can get a feel for what you need to focus on. And I've invited Marie here…

episode 1: hey i'm the cool npc, why don't you fight me so i can show you how badass i am

episode 11: hey i'm the cool npc, why don't you fight me so i can-

graduation is more repetitive than the eleventh hour.

marie is the elf, and she's the school nurse.

travis makes them roll initiative, and then justin rolls a 2, so travis responds by saying

>Crush: Um, I will allow the three of you to go first. I will go last, so that I can get a good feel for what‘s going on.

WHAT IS THE POINT THEN. WHAT ARE WE DOING HERE.

clint says he has two weapon attack, something he already used against the chain devil, but because this is the mcelroys present: the adventure zone graduation, they've all forgotten that already and are busy trying to arbitrate how this works. travis gets it right and then griffin corrects him by saying the second attack wouldn't add proficiency to the damage. my understanding is that, if argo has the two weapon fighting feat, proficiency is added to both attacks. this may be the 2024 version though.

>Clint: Okay. So… I'm going to attack with the rapier in one hand, like, take a swipe with the rapier, and then… with a big sweeping arc, follow through with kind of a backhanded blow with the cudgel.

>Travis: Okay.

>Clint: The belaying pin, which is a nautical club.

based clint actually describing what his attack looks like and also using a thematically appropriate weapon.

clint's rapier attack misses

>Travis: That misses. He steps nimbly out of the way. Uh, I would say, impressively nimbly, for a Dragonborn of his size.

clint's club attack hits

>Travis: Yeah, it mostly bounces off. Yeah. I mean, it definitely hurts him a little bit. You feel like you made solid contact, but it doesn‘t seem to, y'know, phase him too much. And so, then, he turns and looks at you, Fitzroy.

clint then tries to use cunning action to disengage, and griffin, kind of like how obama only gets out of bed these days if there's a unionization or strike effort he can break, seems to only speak on rules when it can fuck over his dad, pipes up that two weapon fighting uses your bonus action for the second attack.

>Griffin: Well, technically, taking a two-handed attack is a bonus action also. Sorry, I wanted to get in there and do that before anybody else did.

then again he might be actively in psychosis over how this campaign is being received and terrified of mean rules lawyers dunking on his bro

crush is a frost dragonborn named frostus. hey its me, yellowen chung, the newest addition to hogwarts.

>Justin: Am I correct in assuming that defensive spells are not necessary in this sort of situation? Like, that‘s what Marie is there for?

>Travis: Correct.

>Justin: Okay. I mean, I was gonna do something like, supportive, but um… I'm gonna cast Hold Person.

i mean, no wonder justin had such a bad time playing firbolg, he's i guess decided he wants to be a support caster in a game that already doesn't really have support classes, but especially the druid is not that class.

>Travis: So now, I need all three of you to make a constitution saving throw.

>[...]

>Travis: Oops! Okay. So, Firbolg and Fitzroy, you're going to take half damage.

>[...]

>Travis: Uh, that is going to be, uh, 12 points of damage. So, the two who succeeded would take, uh, half damage.

>[...]

>Travis: Okay, so we‘re back at the top of the order, and it is Argo once more.

this is all the description travis provides of crush using his breath attack. you know, the iconic feat of dragonborn that looks cool as shit and also does a specific type of elemental damage travis didn't mention.

....okay counter: 36 & 37

clint has figured out that florence adds to his attack roll instead of his damage now, and again, no one is going to mention that they've had incredibly inconsistent rulings on this. its fine. give my mans a break, he has to deal with his three idiot sons all game.

>Clint: [announcing the damage from his sneak attack] 17.

>Crush: Okay. Uh, up next is Fitzroy.

this is so fucked dude.

>Fitzroy: I mean, that was sort of my big, nasty spell, and it seems like… did it—can you be honest? Did it even hurt?

>Crush: Uh… I mean, listen – it did some damage.

>Fitzroy: Okay… did it do a cool amount of damage, or…

>Crush: Mmm, no. I'm a big, beefy boy.

https://preview.redd.it/368wigpm3j2h1.png?width=203&format=png&auto=webp&s=662c486ca1ec559793349465aeaaf255e779570d

>Travis: Well I mean, at this point, you guys have hit him, collectively, for 44 points of damage, and he‘s not bloodied yet.

Round 1:

1. argo hits for 2
2. fitz uses chromatic orb to hit for 15
3. firbolg fails at casting hold person

Round 2:

1. argo hits for 17

now i'm just a simple country recapper and not no big city mathuhmatician, but it seems to me that 2 + 15 + 17 is actually 34 points of damage and travis is not actually tracking damage at all.

>Griffin: Uh… which means… that‘s an eight. Sorry, I need to find my effects of Wild Surge. Uh, oh, okay! A beam of brilliant light lances from my chest in a five food wide, 60 foot long line. Each creature in the line must succeed on a constitution saving throw, or take 2d8 radiant damage, and be blinded until the start of my next turn.

>Travis: Oh boy!

>Griffin: So, that‘s probably… I do not see any scenario where that beam does not include at least Argo.

well, griffin, if you for once in your life would use a battle map instead of playing make believe, you'd realize there's actually a significantly greater chance of argo not being in position to be hit by this

https://preview.redd.it/xminhk0q3j2h1.png?width=791&format=png&auto=webp&s=ba490a5c6e25d63827f2b24138cdae5c8167b895

there are 8 potential positions from which argo can enact a melee strike on crush. only 2 of those positions would be in the path of a 5 foot beam, meaning he has 1/4 chance he's standing in a spot where he's be hit, in other words, he has a 75% chance that he's standing out of the way already. that is essentially asking clint to roll a d20 and get above a 5.

travis rolls "six plus seven" for his CON save. so i'm assuming crush is a fighter, which means he also has proficiency in CON saves. so his CON mod is probably a +4 or +5. using this hp calculator, with average health increases, in order to get a fighter over 88 total health, he would need to be level 8 or 9. and yes, there's probably a bunch of feats and other things you could pick up to get to this number sooner, but consider this: travis doesn't fucking know that

>Griffin: Fantastic. 2d6 plus six. Four. Uh, five. Nine plus six is 15. Wham-o.

>Travis: 15 damage.

>Crush: Ugh! That was a good hit.

>clint deals 17 damage: anyway moving on,

>griffin does 15 damage: uhg! good hit!

>justin casts moonbeam, which involves another con save.

>Travis: Uh, he rolled a nat 20.

>Justin: Fuckin‘ holy shit!

>Travis: Yeah, dude. He‘s an arena champion, you guys!

>Justin: That did not affect your rolls. That doesn‘t make any sense. Think about what you're saying.

>Travis: That‘s fair. I mean, I know that. But I'm just trying to give you a little bit of like, like, a little bit of word soup to explain why he‘s so good at it.

justin as an older brother knows exactly how to cut through travis's bravado, and the answer is to tell him the thing he said was stupid and based on a lack of knowledge. travis immediately agrees its stupid because he can't be seen as not understanding something, so he tries to frame it like he was just adding flavor. now a normal human would try to add flavor by describing how he shrugs off the moonbeam, but reiterating his super kewl backstory i guess counts too.

ah! i was wrong! crush is a barb, not a fighter. so that would make him likely level 7 or 8, not 8 or 9.

>Travis: And he is going to draw his, uh, radiant great sword.

anyway.

this attack in theory is the end of combat because travis said up top that this was only going to be two rounds. yet somehow it feels like this will continue for the remaining 27 minutes.

yeah ok cool, nvm, the combat is unceremoniously over. he didn't even use his second attack. what was the fucking point of this.

>Crush: Yeah, you guys did fine. Why did those imps kick your ass so bad? What was wrong? What was off?

>[...]

>Firbolg: The difference is, there were so many of them, and one of you. When there is one, we can work together. But many? Is no good.

you know how when you get into a car accident your driving instructor will make you race him around a go kart track and then be confused when you're fine at driving?

also deeply embarrassing that this combat instructor doesn't know about the action economy. in a better and more well thought out show, this would be because his entire combat experience was in sanctioned one on one pit fights. actually, that reminds me of a gag from felicia day's hit 2000s web series, the guild. i can't remember the circumstances, but zaboo gets into a fight with a hollywood stunt guy, and the dude does all these crazy kicks and punches at him and just like, does not hit him. and he goes "oh sorry, i'm so used to missing for work, here let me try again" and then kicks his ass lmao. the kind of gag that would work perfectly in a setting where everyone play fights but then a real threat actually appears. oh well.

>Fitzroy: No, he was made of something. What was he made of, boys? Do you remember? It was like—he was made of… nipples or some…

>Firbolg: I—ichor?

>Travis: Chains. Chains, guys.

https://preview.redd.it/1izq5d3t3j2h1.png?width=1015&format=png&auto=webp&s=9ecbf82b835654dbd7754913f357b16ecce18c95

chain devils also are not made of chains.

>Crush: Oh, he was—like a chain demon?chain devils also are not made of chains.Crush: Oh, he was—like a chain demon?

https://preview.redd.it/wux9ynju3j2h1.png?width=612&format=png&auto=webp&s=86ba4fab606a88ce9d43d382f6c7de98336b499c

OH YEAH that whole waste of time was an interlude before the final firbolg one on one with althea why don't you just kill me now

fair's fair, travis does interrupt himself to ask argo what he was doing during this down time.

>Clint: Well, y'know, he‘s supposed to be investigating Fitzroy for The Unbroken Chain, and he‘s… y'know, he doesn‘t feel real comfortable with this whole spy thing, so he‘s gonna change genres. He‘s gonna try being like, a private eye. He‘s gonna investigate. So, I think he wants to find out more about Fitzroy, so… I mean, I can remember you making the statement that the school has one of the most extensive libraries in our reality.

again, clint has great player instincts, even if he doesn't always have great story instincts. he's chosen to interact with an established npc with enough of a plausible pretext for why this ties into his assigned character mission. if we actually stopped to ask things like "why in the world would they have the most extensive library in the world" or "if the answer was in the library don't you think that the librarian who is part of your secret society that is explicitly just here to investigate strange magic that's related to fitzroy/the chasm would have found it by now" then it falls apart. but so does literally every other thing about this premise so why start now.

>Clint: And he slowly pulls up his sleeve and reveals his, uh, beautiful Unbroken Chain tattoo that he got at the Hedgehog Pin. And uh, which he has continued to have embellished. It‘s almost—it almost wraps around his whole arm. He‘s continued to have it added onto all the time, and he raises an eyebrow and kind of gives a very pointed look to Sabour. Hm hmm? Hmm hmm hmm hmm?

local player, too good, too pure, for his stupid son's campaign.

i am so fucking annoyed at travis (what's new).

>Travis: So you can speak freely with [Sabour, who is part of the UC], as long as no one else is around.

>[Clint does his tattoo bit]

>Sabour: Yeah. No one is here. Um…

>[Sabour invites Argo to join him in his office]

>Travis: And he kind of gestures his head and shows you that there is a Gary out here.

in the span of a minute travis has:

1. established argo can speak freely IF no one is around (does not actually state if this is true in the moment)
2. chastised clint for not realizing they're alone
3. told argo they need to move locations because they aren't alone

>Argo: Um, okay. Listen, um, I'm uh… I'm checkin‘ out—I wanna check out things on uh, Fitzroy. Y'know, I'm on my secret mission, which I assume you know, so it‘s not that big a secret.

>Sabour: Oh, yes. Yes.

>Argo: I was thinking, like, any… like, a social register from Goodcastle, or uh, old issues of… Knights Illustrated. Especially the bathing suit of armor issues. [laughs]

>Sabour: Yes. That‘s very funny. Um, I have to tell you, Argo, I'm… sorry to go ahead and dead end that investigation, but I thought of that. I've poured through every social registry of, y'know, rich families, bloodlines, knights… all of that, and I have not been able to find Fitzroy Maplecourt on any of them.

https://preview.redd.it/3ldb33hx3j2h1.png?width=1300&format=png&auto=webp&s=b865ebc7a609f82f0ccf926587e16d1b45970036

>Travis: That‘s very good. So yeah, in this volume he has handed you, it‘s basically just like a small blurb under, uh, Maplecourt. But it basically—she is listed… she is listed, uh, as being kind of many, many times removed from a bloodlined family. And you can see that it is not, uh… so, it does not seem that she came into any wealth or power or anything through this that she, um, just was like, many, many, many times removed from this.

>So you are able to glean from your investigation check that she was not, uh… her immediate family of any note, or uh, or wealth or privilege.

>Clint: So, would that mean that Fitzroy really isn't royalty?

>Travis: It would seem that way. You also see, uh, that it is listed that she was married to a man named Jerry Maplecourt. And Jerry lists his profession as, uh… long haul caravaner.

this is kind of a crazy way to do a reveal because a. noble geneology is not tracking lines that aren't still considered noble, and b. if fitzroy is not listed in the Maplecourt geneology that means he has no noble standing. thank travis for travis, while debunking his confucius episode of shmanners i did learn that confucius's direct descendants are still tracked, its one of the oldest recorded geneologies in the world, and we like. know who and where his direct descendant is. he lives in taiwan, he has an official title that earns him a small stipend for being descended from confucius. his name is kung tsui-chang and he is the 79th generation descendant of confucius. there's technically an 80th descendant born in 2006 (kong yu-jen) but there is no wikipedia listing, on account of him being 16.

so now, explain to me how a woman, who is far enough removed in the family tree from the noble title, that she is essentially lowborn, marries a man named jerry maplecourt, who is also presumably lowborn. is this distant noble incest? i mean the reason nobles had incestual marriages is because of the need to keep their bloodline "pure" and because there aren't that many powerful noble families, so you end up forming marriage alliances with ones that are like, your cousins from a generation or two up. or is it saying that jerry took her name, a thing he wouldn't do if it doesn't convey any nobility? i can actually already envision the brennen lee mulligan version of this character, which is that jerry is an anti-noble anarchist but he's also a feminist so he wanted to take his wife's name, but hates that its the same name as a noble house and it causes him a lot of internal dissonance. not here, though.

>Sabour: Well, there is one more thing.

>Travis: And Sabour points to, you can see, a mailing address for Dindra.

hey what the fuck

>Clint: Oh! Okay, where is that?

>Travis: Well I mean, I'm not gonna tell ya—there‘s—I don't know what the mailing address is, Clinton, but you could send her a letter.

HEY WHAT THE FUCK. YOU CAN'T INTRODUCE AN ADDRESS AND THEN ACT LIKE ITS SOMEHOW CLINT'S FAULT WHEN HE ASKS YOU WHAT THE ADDRESS IS. MAKE SOMETHING UP YOU FUCKING PIECE OF SHIT.

also instead of giving his player some pieces of information and possible leads and letting the player figure out how to put it together and what to pursue, travis said AND HERE'S HER ADDRESS YOU SHOULD WRITE HER A LETTER IDIOT

its cool that althea has just been sitting here in their dorm by herself for hours while they did practice combat for some reason

>Althea: Oh, you're not in—you're not in trouble. I—I don‘t—I don‘t work here at the school. I'm a representative from the Heroic Oversight Guild? We‘re a governing body that makes sure that heroes stay on the straight and narrow, and that villains don‘t go too dark. We also make sure that henchpeople and sidekicks are taken care of.

the cool thing about travis doing one on ones is that he gets to explain what the hog does three times in this episode.

>Althea: Actually, at the Heroic Oversight Guild, we respect all races and cultures, and I actually know quite a bit about the Firbolg, and I understand that Firbolgs do not lie. Is that correct?

>Firbolg: Yes. I was, uhh… is very painful.

>Althea: Ah. That‘s why you were squinting and crying the whole time?

>Firbolg: I held my stomach.

travo's corporate DEI statement aside, actually very fucking funny for him to be the one to catch justin on throwing out his lore for a joke.

>Althea: Okay. Well, as such, since I know that it hurts to lie, I will try not to press you on anything that you do not want to discuss. Is that okay?

aaaaaand we're back. what the fuck are you talking about travis

>Althea: You're welcome. First, I'd love to get to know a little bit about yourself. I have read in your file that you came to the school after, it says here, wandering for quite some time and arriving here. Is that correct?

now this is just me, but if i were running a game where i knew i would be bringing up a player's period of wandering, i would make sure to go back and get the actual number of days he said out loud instead of using the weaselly "quite some time" whose vagueness is quickly becoming a real fucking issue for me

i can tell justin's heart isn't in this anymore because to "how has your experience at the school been" he isn't interested in actually doing character work, he's just cracking jokes.

travis seems really eager to, in wrestling terms, i believe "put over" althea? and the result is she speaks like she's corporate HR, its incredibly off putting.

>Travis: And she kind of—you see her fold back her lapel slightly, and unpin a beetle-shaped brooch. And she says…

>Althea: I use this as a recording device, to help me remember the things discussed in meetings, so that I don‘t miss any details. Perhaps this might be of some advantage to you.

>Firbolg: Mmmmm… is this kingdom a two party consent state?

>Althea: Uh, no. [laughs] We have no such… when it comes to the breaking of the law, and someone‘s free will being compromised, the investigation takes precedent.

i was originally going to rag on the idea that althea is this good guy but also tee hee just happens to secretly record you, just for her own personal use though! brief aside, he presents and talks about this as if it were a listening device, but how does that help the firbolg know what he's doing when he's charmed. oh stupid question, it will help because it will record higglemas saying the stuff travis needs him to say because this isn't about finding out what the firbolg is doing, this is about catching higglemas.

anyway to get back to how incredible travis is at being bad, he literally says here, when consent is violated, we don't worry about consent here. also his insane fascist state where his gestapo have no regulations they must follow, when a "law" (whose law? it must be just the hog's since they operate in disparate kingdoms which would have disparate laws) is "broken" any force is justified in punishing the infraction. its so fucking funny how consent ends up being one of the central themes of this story and it is just continuously violated by the supposed "good" guys. deeply deeply funny how much travis reveals his ignorance throughout this campaign.

"after credits" is argo's letter to fitz's mom. its fine. i will shout out this part that i liked:

>Looking forward to hearing from you, and in the words of Larry the Lime, don‘t be rickety!

>Your humble and obedient Argonaut Keene, CCO (unofficial) of the Thundermen Corp.

another episode finished and i feel my life force dwindle. praise travis.

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episode 10

back at it again at the worst professional 5e campaign ever written. this week its episode 11, "You Can Call me Al(thea)" and I am unreasonably bothered that Me is not capitalized and also this barely counts as wordplay.

this was released on 4.2.2020. Episode description:

Investigator Althea Song has some questions for the Thundermen. Meanwhile, each of the fellas has their own missions. A friendship is forged in favors, allegiances are questioned and a letter is sent. Also, the Thundermen go toe to toe with an Arena Champion.

I just don't get how you can like. write this kind of thing and not freak out about how bad your campaign is going. This is just like, a series of unrelated events, none of which are exciting, and then capping off with a fight with an "arena champion" in a campaign that up to this point, has had no arenas or champions.

>Gary: Hey, everyone! It‘s me, Gary. Let‘s see, what‘s been goin‘ on in The Adventure Zone: Graduation? Well, uh, Firbolg has been forgetting stuff, and going places and doing things, and it‘s really freakin‘ him out. So he told Fitzroy all about it. Now Fitzroy and Firbolg are workin‘ together. They're trying to figure that out.

>Uh, let‘s see. Argo is trying to find out all the information he can about Fitzroy. Uh, an investigator from the Heroic Oversight Guild named Althea Song showed up, and she‘s askin‘ some questions. She showed up in the Thundermen dorm to ask them about it. Uh, let‘s see, anything else? I mean, mostly, everything‘s just kind of weird and mysterious! No one trusts anybody. It‘s a whole thing. Let‘s see how it plays out, shall we?

this is a terrible framing device and such a "i don't give a shit anymore" ass pivot. its clear from how he's speaking that he has nothing written down and he's just sitting there trying to remember what happened last session while using a stupid voice. it sounds and feels like your coworker trying to describe a dream they had last night. "mostly, everything's just kind of weird and mysterious" i'm starting to suspect this guy sucks.

thinking with extreme sadness about how austin walker took the time to physically write down a full recounting of the events of kotor 2 for their final episode.

honestly the most unforgivable thing about this campaign is how long the fucking theme song goes on for

>Travis: So, you were able to convince the Heroic Oversight Guild representative, Althea Song, that her questions could wait ‗til morning. Mostly, you did this through, y'know, Argo lying, and Fitzroy crying, and the Firbolg really not doing much of anything, and basically just kind of looking a little worn out. And she took pity upon the three of you and said she would be back tomorrow.

>She also said that she would like to interview each of you individually. So, the other two are free to go about their business, but be sure to be back in time for your interview window. Now, she has decided to begin the day with Fitzroy.

WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS SHIT?? FUCK YOU.

>Griffin: They're probably gonna be playing Animal Crossing, if we‘re being honest.

>Justin: I don't know how to have thoughts that aren't recorded anymore. I've been in the game too long.

>Clint: [laughs]

>Travis: I understand.

>Justin: What if I think something, and it‘s like, ―This is somewhat entertain—this could pass for entertainment.‖ And I'm not saying out loud. It‘s like, did anyone even hear it? If I think, and don‘t say it into a microphone…

self deprecation only works if there's a clear gap between what you're describing and how you actually are. otherwise it just becomes an uncomfortable moment of truth.

>Travis: Okay. So, uh, you are—Fitzroy, you're sitting at the little dining room nook in your dormitory, sitting across from the, uh, red-haired elf woman, Althea song. And she says…

in another extremely consistent move by travis mcelroy, no description of their dorm's dining area has ever been described, it looks exactly how you'd imagine a dining nook would look like. he has, however, in every single instance of althea being somewhere, mentioned she has red hair. this is fine just weird because he's so sparse with actual description literally everywhere else but he's really honed in on althea being a redhead.

>Althea: Well, we do our best at the Heroic Oversight Guild to be accurate and respectful. So, um, first, before we get to any kind of official questions, I'd like to get to know a little bit about you, Fitzroy. So what is it that brought you to this fine institution?

NOOOOOOO NO WE CANNOT HAVE GRIFFIN EXPLAIN HIS WHOLE DEAL AGAIN I CAN'T DO IT

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>Althea: Uh, I am aware of the events. You were a student at Clyde Nite‘s Night Knight School, and you turned, uh, the dean of the school into a catfish. I am aware.

truly no one is doing it like the fucking mcelroys, travis once again asks griffin to recap his backstory, griffin does, and then travis responds by also recapping his backstory back to him. fucking insane. what is wrong with you.

>Fitzroy: And it‘s funny. And like, we laugh about it now. Like, now, when we get together and talk about it, like, we laugh about it, because it‘s fun. Like, it‘s water under the bridge. It‘s so funny.

>Althea: I've spoken to Sylvia Nite about it, and she doesn‘t necessarily find it as funny as you do. But…

>Fitzroy: Inside joke, really. Like, an inside joke between friends and colleagues.

>Althea: Ah. But what I was really asking is, what… not the events, but more, the motivation of what brought you to this school.

travis has one improv move and its-

i cannot believe we are starting this episode with

travis: so why is fitzroy here?

griffin: he turned the dean of his former school into a catfish

travis: yes, i know he turned the dean into a catfish

griffin: yeah we laugh about it now

travis: no you don't

griffin: yes we do

travis: anyway, so why is fitzroy here?

oh god this just keeps going

>Althea: Well, uh, that leads me to my next question. You speak of ‗make something of yourself.‘ Is this a family tradition? Does your family have a history of heroing, or villaining, or sidekicking, or…

>Fitzroy: Oh, sure. Sure. Sure.

>Althea: Really?

>Fitzroy: Big—ohh, sure. Biiig history. Why—how do you think we acquired such vast sums of fame and fortune?

>Althea: Well, because… I've been going through the Heroic Oversight Guild records, and I can't find mention of a Maplecourt—

>Fitzroy: We‘re from the other Heroic Oversight Guild. The other one. Y'know how there‘s another one, like a competing guild?

>Althea: No.

genuinely bizarre exchange. travis is asking, in-character for some reason, the sort of character development questions you'd ask your player in session 0 to help establish their character in the world. and then griffin responds and travis just says no thank you, that's not true.

what is sort of interesting here, and i know i cut the transcript here with althea saying "no" but travis isn't actually shutting down the idea of a second heroics guild. the "no" here is in response to "have you heard of it" not to the existence of one itself. which yeah, competing promotions is actually an interesting thing to have in your world, which is why it doesn't exist in this one. or i guess now technically does and travis just won't acknowledge he's allowed that and will never bring it up again. same diff.

>Althea: I see. Now, uh, you are now on the villain track, I see in your records. And so, once you become a professional villain, I know that you will be registering with the Heroic Oversight Guild. Tell me, what do you know about HOG?

>Fitzroy: Um… well, I mean, that is assuming I don‘t go with the shadow guild. Uh, which—oops, I've said too much already. But should I—should I go with HOG, um, I assume that I will be… instantly rewarded with vast sums of… fame and fortune? I'm not entirely sure, uh, how it works on your side of things.

>Althea: Ah. Well, let me clarify that point, because I think that that is an important one. Uh, the Heroic Oversight Guild is not in charge of compensation. That will be negotiated with whatever township or principality or whatever location you end up being hired as a professional villain for.

>The Heroic Oversight Guild is there to make sure that you behave within, uh, the structures, the rules and legalities, of being a professional villain or hero, to make sure that, you know, you stay on the straight and narrow, as it were. Whether that means being the right kind of villain, or the right kind of hero. Uh, and should you stray from the path, uh, well, the Heroic Oversight Guild is there to gently guide you back, or in some cases, take slightly extreme measures, comparatively. But I'm sure that we will have no issues with you. And we look for—

travis accidentally brings up a great point here, which is why is it called the heroics oversight guild when it oversees both heroes and villains. and to get entirely too in the weeds with this, an "oversight guild" is nonsensical, guilds are built around trades. overseeing the behavior of guild members is innately part of the purpose of guilds but not the primary function. this is like if the NBA was named the national basketball rules enforcement association. another key thing guilds do is set the prices their members charge. you are not negotiating with a city as an individual artisan or merchant because the guild does that for you and also will prevent you from working/trading in the area if you are not a member. "slightly extreme measures, comparatively" compared to what?

>Althea: Excellent. So, now, down to business, Sir Fitzroy.

>Fitzroy: This hasn't been bus—what has this been, if not business?!

>Althea: This has simply been a getting to know you session.

jesus fucking christ. its been 12 minutes btw.

>Althea: What has your experience at the school been like?

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this exchange feels like an eternity and sucks for a lot of reasons but at the actual core is that there has been no justification for althea's interest in these idiots, there's no real concept of what she's looking for, there's no real idea of what happens if she finds what she's looking for. the players know, thanks to a heavy handed prewritten cutscene from travis, that higglemas is doing weird evil shit, but the CHARACTERS have no idea and so there's no way to play this. there's no tension about her getting close to some secret because the players don't have a fucking secret they need to protect.

>Griffin: I'm like, anxiously looking around as Gary—is there a Gary in this room?

>Travis: Oh yes.

>Griffin: Okay.

>Fitzroy: Aw, and it‘s good, and I'm havin‘ a real good time. No real serious problems that I can think of. I'm surprised.

>Althea: Ah, if I may…

>Fitzroy: Mm.

>Althea: I sense that, perhaps, you are worried about, uh, some listening in. You needn‘t worry about that.

>Travis: And she taps, uh, a silver ring on the index finger of her left hand, and when she taps it, there is a slight, blue glow. And she says…

>Althea: This provides just a little bit of privacy for these kinds of chats, so you needn‘t worry about anyone listening in.

this sucks. it makes sense because travis doesn't know what nuance or tension means and he needs them to know althea is actually awesome and cool and good but man this sucks. also why are they so worried about gary? they know some hinky mind control stuff is happening, but in-character they have no idea who is behind it, why would you assume gary, and by proxy, the school administration is involved.

oh god wait is the intent here for them to hand over their info about the mind control so travis can take over this plot with his npc. is that why he's pushing about her being trustworthy.

shitty poorly mixed too quiet music is here now

>Fitzroy: M‘kay. My needs are a bit more immediate than that. Um, things aren't going so great at the schooool? Things aren't going so great at the school. Did you get—did you get, perhaps, a letter from a student here, um, requesting help, and then, maybe that student doesn‘t… live… anymore?

>[music plays]

>Althea: Well, the nature of my investigation, the details, uh… are not exactly for public consumption at this time. Suffice it to say that we—we did receive, uh, perhaps, a message with some concerns. But beyond that, I am not at liberty to share.

>Fitzroy: Yes, I may have goaded on that said student to share said concerns, and may have led to said… extinguishing… of said student‘s… said lifespan. And so…

>Althea: I see.

>Fitzroy: That‘s where I'm at. Little bit—little bit—little paranoid. Wasn‘t kidding about the bugs and plumbing. That‘s all top notch, but the fear of my… being killed while I sleep, orrr… being brainwashed into, y'know, jumping into the Godscar Chasm, or a dragon‘s mouth…

>Althea: Excuse me – brainwashed, you say?

>Fitzroy: Yeahhh. Yeah, that‘s kind of the going… theory. Um… the going concern. Uh, yeah. Yeah, that‘s sort of where I'm at.

>Althea: That‘s a very serious concern, Sir Fitzroy. That… that would break, mm, one of the most major tenants of the Heroic Oversight Guild.

this is so goddamn funny. because travis knows that leon isn't dead, althea is completely nonplussed about STUDENT MURDER but hold on, did you say BRAINWASHING? that's a big no-no

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>Althea: Well, the thing is… even the most villainous of villains is not allowed to compromise someone‘s free will.

yeah, no shit, we got that sherlock. your villains also aren't allowed to kill people. idiot. "even the undertaker isn't allowed to kidnap people" do you hear yourself

we're finally done with the fitzroy interview, that took a full 18 minutes in which literally just griffin and travis talked. i am now also seeing this episode is almost 2 fucking hours long why don't you just kill or brainwash me.

>Justin: Uh, well, I wanted to talk to Gary.

>Travis: Okay. Just to like, have a friendly chat? Like… what does this coffee remind you of? Ah, that little bistro in Venice. Jean Claude.

>Justin: I want to talk—well, I mean, do I have to tell you what the conversation is gonna be about? Or should I have the conversation? Would that be better?

>Travis: No, but I—there are—so there are multiple Garys, uh, throughout campus.

>Justin: Doesn‘t matter, right? Shouldn‘t matter.

>Travis: They are all—so, as a quick, brief reminder about the Garys, they are a hive mind. But they do have individual, uh, like, consciousnesses as well. They just share the information that they have, if that makes sense.

this must have been the point where travis decided to bravely double down on all the aspects of his campaign he actually liked, which is not having anything happen, holding one on one interviews, and being needlessly combative with everyone. because like what the fuck is this exchange. like if you need more information on the player's intent in order to decide what the scene looks like, you can just ask that without being a smarmy prick. AND THEN it turns out that he doesn't even want that information! he's just being an asshole! and then he explains his gary concept again because no one understands it because it LITERALLY DOES NOT MAKE SENSE. "if that makes sense" it really fucking doesn't bud

"this is my group of rebels"

"oh so they're fighting against the current leaders of their country?"

"no, so a quick reminder, the rebels are actually from across the sea and they arrived here to take over the land at the behest of their king, if that makes sense"

>Travis: Yes, there are inside Garys and outside Garys. It just depends on their potty training. [laughs]

hey chat. why did travis create field garys and house garys.

>Travis: Yeah. There is, uh, there is a Gary stationed at the entrance to the Henchperson and Sidekick Annex.

justin wants to talk to the gary nearest to higglemas's office, and apparently its the one OUTSIDE of the annex? is his office the only thing in the annex? where are the sidekick dorms? because they had a fucking GARY in those and that would ostensibly be closer to the office than OUTSIDE

>Gary: Ayy, Master Firbolg! How‘s it goin‘? It‘s me, Outside Gary. I'm the Annex Gary. Hi.

>Firbolg: Uh… greetings.

>Gary: Okay.

....okay counter: 35. genuinely don't understand this man, because this isn't even one of those "caught flat footed and can't think of a response in time" things, justin literally just says hi and travis can't think of how to respond to that? dumbest man alive

that was a 100gecs reference and when they first debuted and everyone was really polarized on their sound and didn't know what to make of hyperpop, i hadn't listened to them at all, and then a track came across my discover on spotify or some shit like a year later and i found out that the thing that had everyone up in arms was basically just nightcore? y'all were mad about nightcore???

>Firbolg: This is not… uh… Worth… arguing about. [sighs]

player tagline for the adventure zone graduation. and playing amongus with travis. i'm starting to think this might just be the tagline of travis's life

>Gary: Uhh… listen, you didn‘t hear this from us, but uh… while you were in Higglemas‘ office, Higglemas‘ Gary was out of commission? Asleep? For that 20 minutes. So… we‘re not sure what y'all were talkin‘ about. Uh, but uh, he‘s not normally… we don‘t go to sleep. We‘re statues. Y'know, so we don‘t really require… a lot of sleep, per se. Sooo… yeah, that—I guess that‘s strange? Does that count?

literally less than 5 minutes ago:

>Justin: Yeah, um… I want to talk—what‘s the closest Gary to Higglemas‘ office?

>Travis: Um, there is an outside Gary at the front.

it is extremely apparent that, somehow, for like the fifth or sixth time this campaign, a player has wanted to follow up on something dramatic travis revealed, and travis literally did not have anything else planned beyond having that dramatic reveal, because somehow, he still hasn't gotten the difference between his toys characters in a novel and real living human beings. so he tries to dodge justin's question a couple of time and when justin really pushes in he has to give something so he just renegs on the previous thing he did to prevent justin from learning anything, pretending that there are no other garys inside the annex, to create a gary that is not only inside the annex, but directly in view of what happened to firbolg, but actually that gary was asleep and even though he literally says next line it would take powerful magic to put a living statue asleep, this gary is very nonchalant about experiencing something no gary has ever experienced and only thinks to bring it up when directly pressed.

>Gary: Well, I mean, I just figured you've had a pretty standard, y'know, appointment. You've come wanderin‘ in here, uh, and wanderin‘ out about every other day. So I didn‘t really think that much about it.

this counts as evidence of travis not being able to understand other people have their own interority that is not shared with himself because that's the only way you'd believe anyone wouldn't immediately say "this is stupid". "uhhh yeah you went in for an appointment and then one of ours blacked out, a thing that can only happen under extremely powerful magic. but everything seems normal and i have no follow up thoughts"

>Firbolg: If you see me walk this way again… I need you to ask the other Garies… to find… Fitzroy.

>Gary: Okay!

>Firbolg: And make him stop me.

>Gary: Ohh. Okay! Now, listen, if I do this for you, you need to do a favor for me.

...okay counter: 36. literally because he was too impatient to wait for justin to finish speaking before saying something

i can't really fault justin here because despite how much time travis spent painstakingly showing us every aspect of his dumb school, the geography remains non-euclidean because he is extremely stupid. so sure, have the gary watch out for you going into the sidekick annex, that's probably not where your sidekick classes are anymore.

>Gary: Yeah, that would be great! Or maybe like, some little sunglasses, or… just something. I don‘t want to be squintin‘ all day, y'know? The sun hits from about, like, ten AM to like, three. It‘s just right in my eyes.

th.. the sun hits your eyes at noon?

26 minutes in we are now at argo's interview. should be noted clint was specifically the one to ask if they should be thinking of what they were doing while waiting for fitzroy's interview to finish, and then, despite being the next one up, travis has a scene for what the firbolg was doing, even though the firbolg now still has free time.

>Travis: So! It‘s time. We‘re back in the dormitory. Argo, you have arrived for your questioning session. Now, tell me, what‘s, uh… how do you approach the table? You enter, you see Althea sitting at the table. She says…

>Althea: Ah, yes! Argonaut Keene. Please, join me.

>Argo: Um, certainly. Yes. Um, I would be happy to. I was just out… takin‘ a little stroll. Findin‘ out the news of the day. [laughs nervously]

>Althea: Okay, well then, you're gonna need to walk over here to the table.

>Argo: Oh! Well, yes. Okay. So…

first off all, "how do you approach the table" is a wack question. with his feet, travis. that's a nitpick. now on to the actual reason i've pasted this exchange in, which is travis indulging in my personal dming pet peeve, the guy who wants to be obtuse and insist that unless you detail every single action out loud, you did not do it. same impulse that has travis constantly interjecting as an npc even when its clear that the players have stepped aside to have a private conversation, because "you didn't say you were whispering to each other" like it is not your first day on earth, use the context clues and stop playing to frustrate

>Althea: May I offer you something to drink? Some tea, perhaps? I don't know, a beverage of your choice. I can summon whatever you want.

>Argo: Juice? Do you have any kind of juice?

>Althea: Sure. What kind of juice would you like?

>Argo: Um… do you have tangelo?

>Althea: I do!

>Argo: I love tangelos.

again, travis indulging in his worst impulses now we're talking about beverages. also very bold of him to leave this in after justin destroyed their relationship with lin manuel miranda by hucking a tangelo at his head

>Travis: And she waves her hand, and a frosty glass of tangelo juice appears.

oh. when she said summon she did not mean call in a servant, but actually literally conjuring drinks

for how central magic is to his plots, it is amazingly underdefined in its scope and usage

>Althea: I—before we get down to brass tacks, as they say, I'd like to get to know a little bit about you. I don‘t like going straight to business. I feel like it‘s cold.

FUCK ME

the only amount of character work travis is interested in pursuing is repeatedly asking his players to explain to him why they think his school is so awesome and cool

>Althea: Yes, of course. Yes, he [the commodore] is one of the Heroic Oversight Guild‘s prized jets heroes.

like maybe the most bottom rung obvious plot beat here is that the commodore is so good at making the HOG money that they don't really care that he does a bunch of other bad shit "off camera" and they won't ever punish him because he's too "valuable"

and that's still too much of a reach for ol travvy's poor beleaguered creativity

>Argo: Yes, and to me as well. And uh… I've just admired him since the day I met him, and it‘s uh—

>Althea: Oh?

>Argo: It‘s just been a dream. Hm?

>Althea: When did you meet him?

>Argo: Oh, well, uh, he and my mother used to work together. They, uh… well, my mother kind of worked with him. For him, uh, in the past.

>Althea: Oh, I see. Was she a sidekick or a henchperson?

it makes sense here for travis to feign ignorance because this is an opportunity for clint to deliver more of his backstory, but in-universe it looks fucking crazy because earlier she had specifically searched the entire HOG archive and found no mention of any other maplecourts registered. also while i'm here, let me get on my tiny soapbox of i don't understand why everyone loves to keep their backstories hidden. writing scenes in film and television to reveal a character's backstory in a way that isn't just a monologue to someone is already pretty hard. to do it in a format that's semi-improv seems miserable. so you often do get scenes like this, where someone just asks about it and then the player gets to read off whatever. and like sorry, i don't think scenes like that are interesting! i'd much rather just have the outline of the story on the table for everyone, and then we can all play with those pieces instead of the dm having to awkwardly fit in this scene. ok, back to argo's backstory

>Argo: Alright. My mother, uh, Shebrie Keene, uh, used to work on a narwhaler. Y'know, the ships that go out and hunt narwhals.

>Althea: That‘s a disgusting, disgusting job.

travis can't pass up the opportunity to let everyone know he thinks whaling is bad

>Argo: I know. It‘s a terrible job. And there was an incident, and uh, in—as the aftermath of that incident, my mother decided she didn‘t want to do that anymore. And she—and I say this with pride. I mean, it sounds bad, but I say it with a lot of pride. She, uh… she kind of led a mutiny. Onboard the ship. And they didn‘t want to hunt narwhals anymore, and uh, she was able to sway the whole crew, and um, we even convinced the former captain to join us. And um… my mother, from that day forward, was forever changed, and she uh… we became privateers, workin‘, y'know, for the crown. Actin‘ like pirates, but workin‘ for the crown. And in doing that, we kind of uh… we were workin‘ with The Commodore. He was kind of our official liaison to the Navy, and uh, that‘s how I first met him.

i know clint cleared this backstory with travis, because travis was already using parts of it to entice argo with the unbroken chain, so explain to me why a navy exists and how the commodore is in charge of it, TRAVIS. the game STARTED with broken lore. like genuinely how are you so bad at this

the existence of privateering, however, is actually really exciting to me. because now you are talking about state sponsored mercenaries. and that makes travis's "there's no more war" thing feel much more interesting and grounded, because it becomes apparent that this is a lie. all these nations pat themselves on the back for their civility and peace, while each engaging in hiring clandestine forces to manipulate the geopolitics of the region. there are no more standing armies, but if kingdom A's wheat production is severely disrupted by waylaying merchant vessels or fields "mysteriously" burning, and that happens to mean that kingdom B's own wheat is suddenly much more valuable, well, there's no more war, surely it was just bandits right? and then that gives, idk, groups like the unbroken chain something to fucking do.

it also makes the school more interesting! because now there's an actual alternative for people to choose to join. like, is this school filled with nobles because if you are a commoner who is strong and good at fighting, you've likely been pressed into a mercenary company? maybe its voluntary because a single black ops mission is going to provide your family more money than they'd make in a month, with the tradeoff being if you're caught, the kingdom is going to disavow any knowledge and leave you for the wolves?

there'd probably be a lot of friction between performers and mercenaries, right? both because of the class difference, but also because they're often pursuing the same goals for their kingdom but one gets acclaim and an equal amount of wealth, and the best a mercenary can hope for is to make enough to quit before they're buried in an unmarked grave. but no, none of that exists, kingdoms just have political borders they in no way enforce and everyone who goes to the international wrestling school abandons their former allegiances to their homelands and are just cool to vibe out wherever they're assigned.

>Griffin: Um, there‘s only one kind of incident that happens on a narwhal hunting boat, right? Like, somebody for sure got impaled by a narwhal tusk. I can't think of—

>Travis: There might‘ve been like… this narwhal was special. This was like a Free Willy level narwhal.

>Griffin: All narwhals are special, Trav.

you ever see a guy and think "that guy could have afforded to get his ass beat a few more times"

>Clint: Well, actually, she fell in. His mom fell in. Uh, to the water while they were hunting. While they were hunting the narwhals. And uh, he—Argo jumped in, ‗cause he can breathe water, and his mother obviously couldn‘t. And before he could do anything, the narwhal surfaced, and there was his mom, standing on the nose of the narwhal, holdin‘ onto the horn, and she was just a changed woman after that. And she just couldn‘t bring herself to kill these beautiful creatures, so… [fake crying] They did have a little—it had a Free Willy thing to it.

>Travis: It‘s not actually a horn. It‘s actually a specialized tooth.

>Griffin: Get ‗em, Trav! Brap brap brap brap! Get him!

>Travis: It‘s a specialized tusk. But anyway.

>Griffin: Burn that daddy! Scorch him!

i was going to spend some time calling clint corny but then travis wanted to be weird and antagonistic so clint is once again saved and has never done anything wrong as a player ever

>Althea: Well, I will tell you this, specifically for you, because you will need to know this. There are two ways that one can become a registered sidekick or henchperson for a hero or villain. Uh, way number one is that you would have some kind of connection with said hero or villain, and they would specifically request you as a sidekick or henchperson.

>The other pathway is through placement, where you would register with the Heroic Oversight Guild. You would fill out a couple forms, you would do some questionnaires, and then a couple interviews. And you could request said hero or villain, and we would see if the pairing makes sense for both parties, if the hero or villain was even looking for new sidekicks or henchpeople. But if your first choice wouldn‘t work out, we would then place you with another hero or villain that we think would be a good fit. But you would, of course, have the final say.

i think what i'm learning is that travis can't really differentiate on what could be like, a logical assumption on how something operates based on the real world, and when something deviates in a way that it's important to then explain so the viewer understands. because this is a big ol wall of text that really just says what.....i assumed was how this worked? like if you heard "there's an office-like administration that does logistics work for heroes and sidekicks, how do you think a hero getting a sidekick works?" at least me, i would say yeah, either the hero requests someone specifically, or else there's some sort of placement program.

>Althea: Certainly. If you would like… um, in fact, Argo, I respect your dedication and your hard work, and I would be happy. I actually know The Commodore personally.

>Argo: Get out! You do not!

>Althea: Yes. Yes. We have worked together before on cases and investigations. I would be happy to put in a word for you, if you'd like.

two things: what sort of investigation would the commodore be a part of. and althea, which we know travis wants to be above reproach as a heroic figure, is endorsing turbo racist and actually evil dude commodore rn

>Althea: I respect that even more. I think that that sounds like a plan. Now, Argo, this has been such a pleasure chatting with you, but I do need to get down to business and ask you a couple questions about the reason I came here to the school.

>Argo: Sure. Sure.

>Althea: First, how has your experience been here? Has it been satisfactory?

like why is he giving them all customer satisfaction surveys.

there's a weird tangent where argo goes on about feeling left out or excluded from the group but then althea gets to the actual heart of the matter:

>Althea: This is—uh, I thank you for bringing this up, because this was another question I had, which was, do you feel that you, as a sidekick or henchperson, are being treated fairly here at the school?

WHAT

https://preview.redd.it/eie2n8rjzi2h1.png?width=1387&format=png&auto=webp&s=b7c6282b87742fca247237ed87701a5aa981dce2

"are sidekicks and henchmen being treated fairly?"

also, on an incognito browser not signed in, this trailer is the 15th result for searching "taz grad" on youtube. it is so far down the list that i almost went back to add trailer to my search.

oh actually that isn't the reason she's here. after this she then asks the thing she's REALLY here for: have you seen anything strange?

https://preview.redd.it/xazvq6nnzi2h1.png?width=1280&format=png&auto=webp&s=ede34a9e5c6011ce4ca1bee7020e3294cf22fc5c

>Travis: So, uh, Fitzroy. During this period of time, what have you been doing during Argo‘s question session?

actually, i take it back, clint's tangent about argo feeling excluded isn't weird at all because its genuinely so fucked how much he's sidelined in this game.

once more a player is asking for information it doesn't appear travis wants to give. fitz went to ask festo if they knew anything about althea. festo says yes, but then twice in a row after prompting, just says she's an investigator for the hog.

>Festo: That is on her business card, as you have pointed out. I'm not— Festo only does bits twice. No rule of threes for Festo.

i'll leave this for you to interpret.

>Festo: Um, she is one of the prized investigators. She tends to be the one that they send on very important missions. Uh, she has worked her way up through, uh, the ranks of the Heroic Oversight Guild. Um… I've always liked her. She seems cool. She seems fun to party with. She‘s nice.

its hard to take this seriously when festo doesn't appear to give a shit that she's here.

then because travis is incapable of delivering information organically, or when a player is specifically requesting it, after some more dialogue he says this:

>Festo: But are you asking if you can trust Althea Song?

>Fitzroy: Oh, yes.

>Festo: Yyyes.

>Fitzroy: You—somehow, you turned that into a two syllable word, which makes me think you didn‘t actually mean it.

>Festo: In Festo‘s experience, Althea has always done right by Festo. She is kind and true. But… she is also committed to the Heroic Oversight Guild, and committed to doing her job. Festo does not know if Althea would put person first, or job first.

this LITERALLY MEANS NOTHING because NOTHING HAS BEEN ESTABLISHED. when normal functioning adults write a line like this, it is because the character in question will soon be forced to choose between her own personal morals or connections and her duty. but we don't know why she's here, we don't know what she's looking for, we don't know how it impacts the player characters. like who is "person" referencing here when festo is speaking? who would she have to choose between and her duty? fitzroy? she just met fitzroy! also he's not in violation of the one extremely vague thing you've said the hog enforces!

cont

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we're finally done with this awful scene and checking back in with the firbolg, who is trying to find a spot to talk to fitz inside the unknown forest

>Travis: When you enter the Unknown Forest, there is definitely a magical darkness. So as you enter, the light doesn‘t seem to pierce very far. Even though it‘s midday, um, there‘s not a lot of light piercing from the world outside the trees. So you do get the very distinct impression that this was maybe a world separate unto itself in some way.

>Sort of like if you crossed below the surface of a lake, right? You suddenly— the sound would not travel the same, the light would not travel the same. And if you look into the surface of the water, it would actually—the light would be diffracted in such a way that you would not get a clear picture of the thing beneath. That is the quality of the Unknown Forest. Difficult to perceive, hence the name.

he is so bad at description and atmosphere its crazy. again:

1. its darker inside
2. sound does not travel the same

are just things that happen in a regular fucking forest, because of the foliage and trees blocking light and sound. that he cannot even commit to making it actually dark-- its "not a lot of light" is so fucking embarrassing. he doesn't even consider temperature, which, often it is cooler inside forests than without, because of less sunlight. that is why magic forests are so common in folklore and fantasy, a dense forest does have a distinct quality to it that makes it feel you crossed a threshold into something Else. but since travis "i talk good" mcelroy has never actually been in the woods we get this bullshit. once again, let me indulge myself and my degree and do a rewrite:

Entering the Unknown Forest is not unlike diving into a lake-- the world darkens, the sounds muffle, the temperature drops. This is not a gradual process. One minute, you are outside, it is midday, the sun bears down on you. You step forward past the boundary. It is twilight here. The sounds of the school vanish. If you were to look behind you, you'd see the clearing, the school, the sun still shining brightly, but through a haze, like a hot summer day. Everything out there feels...less real. Like you're looking at a dream you had once. The trees that surround you, however, feel very real. The thick, gnarled branches almost seem to be reaching for you, and you keep turning your head, because you swear you see movement in those branches from the corners of your eye, but everything is always still when you fix your gaze directly on it. Somewhere, further in, you hear the mournful call of an owl. Then the silence of the forest blankets you once more.

"there is definitely a magical darkness. So as you enter, the light doesn't seem to pierce very far." -> vague, tells you explicitly its magic because there's no visual language here that would tell you otherwise. what does "doesn't pierce very far" mean? I have no idea how dark it actually is in this forest.

"One minute, you are outside, it is midday, the sun bears down on you. You step forward past the boundary. It is twilight here. The sounds of the school vanish." -> directly comparison between within the forest and without, midday and twilight are specific times of the day everyone has experienced and can relatively imagine what that transition and difference is like. Specifically calling it a boundary I'm trying to invoke both, this is a border, something else rules on this side as well as reinforcing the magical nature. One step, different world.

sorry there's just 19 minutes left in this episode and each second feels like an hour. i'm yapping because i'm scared to hit play.

>Travis: And what do you do there, Fitzroy, now that you are done speaking with Crabtree?

>Griffin: Uh, I… I wanna—I guess I start making my way there. I… I think about… uhh… I think about like, trying to get Argo in on this? But there is a part of me that watched him leave the room a lot while I was asleep, like, through my trance sleeping, and there—I think that there is just like, still enough, um, uhh, like… there‘s still enough uncertainty there that I do not know if he would bring him into the fold. Like, hence the secretive nature of this.

griffin isn't strictly wrong here from an in-character perspective, but "it's a show, not a home game" has to cut both ways: some railroading to create a satisfying narrative may be allowed, but also that means you can't make decisions that cut out 1/3 of your party for 80% of the episode just because it would be "in character". you, griffin, know this chain bullshit is nothing, include your fucking dad before i have to sit through travis making you recap it to him.

>Travis: You are uh, able to follow the Firbolg‘s very literal directions, that has to do a lot with like, take three steps, step one to the right, see a tree, look to the left of that tree… like, that kind of thing. They're very precise, and maybe a little too precise, to the point of like, yeah, I see you. I don‘t— okay.

>And you step foot past the kind of boundary of the Unknown Forest. As you do, I'm gonna say that it—the kind of cold and darkness maybe hits you a little harder, Fitzroy. It‘s not really a world you're as comfortable in as the Firbolg. Definitely, when you enter, it just sends a chill up your spine. And maybe it‘s all placebo. Maybe it‘s just in your mind. It‘s that feeling of when you enter an abandoned building, and you just feel like, ―I'm not supposed to be here.‖

first, all justin said was he reached out to fitzroy "with my approximate gps coordinates" so this is a fucking wild characterization done without justin's permission. something he'd normally push back on but he's on duolingo at this point this man is not paying attention.

second, you cannot go "maybe its placebo" after explicitly saying its magically darker in here. like in mine, i made it pretty clear there's something magical going on, but not necessarily hostile. there's some language in there like gnarled and the branches maybe? reaching for you, something that could explain the reputation this forest has garnered, because that's enough magical bullshit that if you're a normal person you'd be like, fuck this haunted forest. but it isn't like, definitively evil, it could just have bad vibes and be a little spooky feeling.

>Griffin: Gary check. Are there any Garies out here? Did we buy the pocket Gary?

>Travis: Uh, I mean, you did, but you tell me. Do you have Pocket Gary with you?

you mean the one you confiscated, travis?

griffin is now saying he needs to pick which school of magic his class feature detect magic is checking for, and while the language of the mechanic is a little ambiguous, i do not think that's true.

>Lingering Magic

>3rd-level Path of Wild Magic feature

>At 3rd level, your body reacts to the presence of magic. You can cast the detect magic spell without using a spell slot or components. Constitution is your spellcasting ability for this spell. You faintly glow a color corresponding to the school of magic you detect (you choose the colors).

>You can use this feature a number of times equal to your Constitution modifier (minimum of once). You regain all expended uses when you finish a long rest.

so that reads to me like the way griffin initially used it the first time he cast: he glows a different color depending on which schools he's detecting, not a called shot on which schools of magic he thinks are present. am i wrong?

>Travis: Um, it—you do detect the same, uh, school of magic, the same level of enchantment. Roll a perception check for me?

>Griffin: Uh, that is a 12 plus two. 14.

>Travis: Um, and you are pretty sure it is exactly the same. That it is not just the same, um, school, but that it has a very similar, like… if you're seeing the color, right? That it has almost the same tone you remember.

1. not how any version of this spell functions, 2. why wouldn't it be an arcana check you fuck

griffin casts charm person on firbolg, and this is his justification:

>Griffin: I am looking for… a conflict. Like, I am looking for… you can't charm a charmed person, right? Like, you can't mind control a mind controlled person. This is—that is literally what I am trying to do here. I am trying to, I guess, battle some sort of, uh, y'know, domination on him with my own.

this sounds right, but i can't find the official ruling on how two different charm effects would interact. it also though, sounds wrong, because the firbolg isn't being actively charmed right now. this also feels metagamey as fuck? like why the fuck is griffin being a pissbaby about remembering mimi being not in character and then doing advanced magic deduction, which i could believe that a sufficiently knowledgeable magic user in-universe may even know that when two charm spells interact, the stronger one remains, or the new one clears the old one, or however you end up arbitrating this interaction at the table. but i could not believe that the guy whose entire thing is that he's new at magic and doesn't understand it would think or know to do this

>Travis: Um, so, you are able to charm him. But… it feels… wrong, in a way. The best metaphor I can give you is, imagine putting a record on, and you put the needle to it, and the music does play. You are able to play the music. But you can tell that there has been some kind of damage to the record, albeit minor, that makes it not play quite right.

>So you are able to cast Charm Person, but it feels like there has maybe been… uh, been some other forces at work in the recent past on his psyche.

travis really moves through life with just the broadest, shallowest understanding of anything. like i am not a vinyl guy, but i know one for sure way that vinyl damages is the wax warps. the other way i think is you can get scratches? and i think that makes the record skip? and so like, a warped record playing the song out off pitch, or a scratched record causing the song to skip are both evocative images, with two different vibes, giving you two options on what kind of atmosphere you're trying to establish here. unless you're travis, then its just "some kind of damage" and comes out "not right"

>Firbolg: And I do not know where it is. To not be in control of myself… is… uncomfortable.

>Fitzroy: I am also very afraid of that, master Firbolg. Because I know… I know what you are capable of, and I do not want that in the hands of someone who would use it for ill good, or bad, as some people call it.

?? capable of what? casting moon beam? what in the world is griffin referencing here.

first time clint is on mic since those stupid fucking lockpick rolls is him laughing at something justin said. i do not have the strength to seek back through this audio to find out exactly how long clint has not spoken, but it hasn't happened in this 20 minutes, and the fitzroy/artificer scene felt forever in my brain, so quite possibly 40 minutes since clint has said anything.

>Firbolg: Hmm… well… you… charmed… me. Perhaps… you must charm him as well.

>Fitzroy: [sighs] I don‘t know if he‘s doing whatever he‘s doing under the influence of some sort of magical domination.

based on literally what else aside from metagaming griffin

>Fitzroy: Master Firbolg, I trust you with my life. It‘s what… it‘s what happens to you occasionally that I don‘t trust. I don't know that I can say the same for Argo. And I don‘t necessarily know how to get there, so I think… at least for right now, it would behoove us to stay quiet, at least until we can protect ourselves from whatever is doing this to students at this school.

we are atp just fully inventing a campaign that hasn't happened. livingtree was more consistently built than this.

>Gary: Uh, I have a message for you from Crush, the battlegrounds teacher for villains and heroes. Uh, congratulations, by the way. I haven‘t said that to you yet, on your ascension.

>Uh, Crush said, uh, he heard about your fights with the imps, and he said that he heard that two of you almost died? So, it seems like you guys are gonna need to start your battlegrounds training in earnest, uh, starting tomorrow. But he said rest up, get a good night‘s sleep, get everything ready, ‗cause tomorrow, time for fighting.

>Fitzroy: Is it—is—um… like, fighting with our hands, fighting?

>Gary: I mean, yeah. And swords, and magic, and knives and stuff.

>Fitzroy: Uh, Downstairs Gary, I do need you to tell me right now if there will be skeletons involved in this battle.

>Gary: I mean, there‘s always a possibility. You know we got skeletons that work here, right?

>Fitzroy: [loudly] If you don‘t tell me there‘s skeletons, it‘s entrapment!

>Gary: There will probably be skeletons.

>Fitzroy: Okay. Well, I'm not gonna sleep tonight, so… y‘all wanna watch a movie?

>Argo: [bursts into laughter] One seed to grow a birch tree!!

holy SHIT a fucking LEGENDARY callback delivery from clint that is actually fucking S tier stuff. like everything travis was saying was filling me with a slow dread because it sounds like they are somehow going to do more tutorial combat against those stupid fucking skeletons again but then clint, my sweet oasis, fucking hits it exactly where and how he needs to god fucking bless.

and here comes a fucking travis to bring down the mood again

>Travis: And you all make your way, laughing, up the dormitory steps. You reach your room, you unlock the door, and you enter. Uh, and upon entering, you realize that you have a guest. There is someone sitting at your dining table. It is the red haired elf woman, Althea Song. And she looks up and says…

>Althea: Ah. I'm so glad you three have returned. Please, sit. I have… so many questions.

like why is this a stinger? what tension is this supposed to be building? they aren't accredited and they haven't done anything in violation of standards. he's again trying to lean on harry potter shit, but as i've said before, at least black mold established harry's terrible home life to give stakes to the idea it would be very bad for him if he were to be expelled. and then also had him do things that were explictly stated to be against the rules and grounds for expulsion. what in the world would these guys be worried about.

EPISODE OVER

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and again, because nothing about magic in this world has been explored or explained or even really seen, beyond rainer's stupid fucking skeletons and "magic lanterns" i have no idea how to interpret this statement. what IS wild magic, in this world? why is it called that, how is it distinct? this is like the core of this storyline and its completely undefined. like is wild magic unpredictable? random? if that's the case, why and how has this magic leak not affected the school directly next to it.....at all? in a setting about an adventuring school, this would probably be the actual reason this school exists here, and it would do a ton of public research on this phenomena, and you'd probably intern down in the pit doing fieldwork if you were in the R&D division. but this is a performing arts school so again, why the fuck is it out in the middle of nowhere and why would it not move in the case of a magical gas leak.

>Argo: Well why can't I just come out and ask him? Why can't I, instead of just sittin‘ around, y'know, trying to be—

>Jackle: That is not—Argo, when you joined The Unbroken Chain, you knew what you were getting into. We are a secret organization. You can't just ask him.

??????

>Argo: Okay…

>Jackle: You can't raise any questions, Argo. No one must know what we do. We work. In. Secret.

so NO ONE ELSE ON THIS PLANET is interested in the wholly unique magic phenomena happening at a place called the fucking gods car chasm. fitzroy is literally taking classes right now to better understand his magic. what are you talking about. i don't remember if festo is in the UC but they probably should be because if the whole reason you've created an entire cell of your secret org at this school is to study this magic phenomena, maybe making sure the MAGIC PROFESSOR is part of that research seems, idk. maybe i'm just built different but that's the first person i'm getting on my side. what research has jackle been doing? looking at it and going "that's fucked up"?

>Jackle: Now, we should probably do some rogue practice to keep up the illusion of our independent studies class. So come with me.

>Travis: You step back inside, and you can see that he has laid out three chests. And now he says…

>Jackle: Okay. Today we‘re gonna work on lock picking. Now, each one of these chests, it‘s gonna get harder as we go. So let‘s start with this one on the far left. Why don‘t you pick that lock for me, Argo?

you know, how in school, people are always double checking a teacher's grading and making sure the student actually earned that grade?

and i cannot believe......lock picking. why are we here. the most average dm possible: i will have my players take classes, so to reward them for "learning" i will give them new mechanics to represent that.

travis: now its time to learn a skill that every character in 5e knows baseline.

this is also insane because THE most basic format for school stories, and fuck, also actual school, is that you teach the student something, and then they do a practical example of that thing to show that they've learned it. and we. are coming off two episodes exploring a building full of locked doors. that they got a master key to. so that travis can teach lockpicking in the next episode. WHY WOULD YOU NOT FLIP THESE AND THEN NOT GIVE THEM A MASTER KEY!!! even if its like, you don't want to sit there and watch clint roll lockpicking a dozen times, explain that because argo practiced in class, and the party is in no hurry, he can just lockpick all these doors without rolling as long as he takes his time. just SOME connective tissue between beats, ANYTHING, PLEASE

also, here's a moment from episode 8:

>Travis: Um, so, the cabinet is laying on the ground. It is still locked.

>Clint: We unscrew the back, take the back off the cabinet. There‘s gotta be a way to take the back off the cabinet.

>Travis: Do you have tools?

>Griffin: You gotta have thieves‘ tools.

>Travis: Come on.

>Clint: I have thieves‘ tools, yeah!

>Travis: Okay, great. Uh, roll a check, using your dexterity bonus, for thieves‘ tools.

>Clint: 14 plus four! 18.

narratively this is not technically "picking locks" but mechanically this is how lockpicking is resolved. you've already done this out in the field. this sucks.

>Travis: Well, so, basically, the way that lock picking works in fifth edition D&D is, you roll a d20, and then you're gonna add your proficiency bonus to it. Because you are a rogue, you are proficient in your thieves‘ tools. Anybody can attempt to pick a lock, assuming they have the tools to justify it, but only like, a rogue and maybe a bard, depending on what their specializations are in, have proficiency.

.....i get the sense he gave them a master key for the hospital because he didn't know how lockpicking worked and didn't bother to look it up before. well, he's looked it up now, and so he's got to turn it into a Teaching Moment

>Clint: Okay. Alright. Alright. Here‘s my roll. It is a three! Plus two, that‘s a five.

>Travis: Uh, okay. Well, it didn‘t work. And you're going to take two damage.

>Clint: Ooh.

>Travis: Uh, as a needle springs from the lock and pierces into your finger, as you're trying to pick the lock.

>Jackle: Yeah, but Argo, are you even gonna ask about the trap? [laughs] You need to—okay. You kind of missed the point here, Argo. My point is, before you pick any lock, you need to look for traps. That‘s rule number one in lock picking.

https://preview.redd.it/2rzue0x8951h1.png?width=1280&format=png&auto=webp&s=5443003ac595ff86bbda113a18c3493415ca05ae

what in the actual hell are you talking about travis. this is the kind of guy who's knowledge of the world is so limited he cannot think of actual plausible difficulties to problems, so he makes up insane ones so he can chastise his players for not being knowledgeable, but the knowledge is not tethered in reality. this is like if a character were teaching another character about crossing the street, but instead of explaining you should check both directions to make sure there is no on coming traffic, he says "hey dummy! you didn't cover your legs! a wild animal could have seen those sausages and wanted to take a bite! the first thing you should always do when crossing the street is check for wild animals."

>Jackle: So, before you do it, I want you to look at every lock. I want you to investigate every lock.

>Travis: Now, I say that – it‘s actually a perception check, but I don‘t want him to say, ―I want you to roll a perception check,‖ because that‘s not good DMing.

really travis? is it good dming to have a character say you need to investigate something and then call for a perception check?

>Travis: Okay. So, uh, that—now you see that, actually, the lock you were trying to pick is actually a keyhole on the side of the lock that you were using. That front one is a trapped lock that will pierce anyone who is trying to unlock it. So now, why don‘t you roll a check on that second lock?

???? he made clint roll perception for a trap he already sprung? is he stupid? also this fucking looney tunes ass booby trapped lock please be so fr

fuck not only is this stupid, but it's wildly unclear. this is the exchange that immediately follows "roll a check on that second lock"

>Clint: Alright. Here we go. That‘s a 17 plus…

>Travis: Oh yeah, that does it.

>Clint: Plus two, which is 19.

>Travis: That one pops open

which sounds like they've just moved on to the second chest, but then travis has him roll two more lockpicks, so the math doesn't add up. i think what is actually happening here is travis means the second keyhole in his stupid looney tunes lock on the first chest. truly no one is doing it like the mcelroys

>Jackle: Okay, Argo. Now, the lock on the next chest is a little trickier. Why don‘t you try that one?

>Clint: Okay. Perception check. 15… um, plus two. No, plus one. That‘s 16.

>Travis: Very good. There is no trap on this chest, but good job looking.

in what manner is this lock "trickier" than the first one when this one isn't even trapped. explain this to me travis.

>Travis: I—Dad, I want you to know that I, Travis, am so proud of you. I don‘t care how boring this is to anyone listening. My dad is learning how to be a careful rogue, and it‘s making me very proud.

this is truly an incredible podcast. travis is training his dad to be the most annoying kind of stereotype of a rogue, maybe next he can teach him how to be a bard, but horny. the other thing about the stereotype of the player that declares they are searching for traps every time they enter a new space is those players are trained by other DMs who love to put traps everywhere. THAT'S where the stereotype comes from!! so if you really wanted to make a paranoid player who wants to check over everything in case there's a trap, the way you do that is by putting traps everywhere not this dumbshit lockpicking tutorial.

hey, quick poll, after this moment, how many traps do you think will appear in this campaign.

>Clint: 16 plus one, 17! How careful is that?

>Travis: There is no trap present. Good looking out.

>Justin: Thrilling.

travis: you should always be on the lookout for trapped locks

travis: i'm so proud of you for learning to be cautious around locks, things that are commonly trapped

travis:

travis: there are no other trapped locks it was just the first one

>Travis: A cookie. There wasn‘t going to be anything in it, but I'm so proud of you, it‘s a delicious, somehow magically still warm, chocolate chip cookie.

what in the actual hell are you talking about travis. this is the kind of guy who's knowledge of the world is so limited he cannot think of actual plausible difficulties to problems, so he makes up insane ones so he can chastise his players for not being knowledgeable, but the knowledge is not tethered in reality. this is like if a character were teaching another character about crossing the street, but instead of explaining you should check both directions to make sure there is no on coming traffic, he says "hey dummy! you didn't cover your legs! a wild animal could have seen those sausages and wanted to take a bite! the first thing you should always do when crossing the street is check for wild animals."

https://preview.redd.it/1nfvjqt3951h1.png?width=1300&format=png&auto=webp&s=bdd5ea510d371d317f053a2876cfee02aaad90bc

>Justin: Hey guys, just hit our Patreon. You're gonna get tons of bonus content. You're gonna get my dad checking like 30 more locks for traps.

>Travis: Yeah, we got a lot. Just make sure you smash that ‗like‘ or ‗subscribe‘ button so you don‘t miss any of our updates about how many traps he checks, how many he doesn‘t, uh, and don‘t forget to follow me on Instagram for all my pictures of trapless locks!

absolutely no comment.

19 seconds of too-quiet, tinny, scratchy music to scene transition, he's doing rachel proud with this edit

>Travis: So, Fitzroy, you have been worried. This scene that played out with Buckminster, uh, on your last day of break has kind of stuck with you. And as you have said, it has made you quite paranoid. You‘ve found yourself kind of checking your shoulder. And at this point, you're pretty sure that there is lots of kind of mind-altering shenanigans going on here at the school.

here travis makes the decisions that:

1. fitzroy is worried
2. the interaction with cuckminster has "stuck with" him
3. he's always checking over his shoulder
4. he's "pretty sure" there's lots of mind alteration happening

>Griffin: Yeah.

oh nice travis heard me through quantum mechanics complaining about how he doesn't ask about his player character's thoughts and feelings and is explicitly asking griffin what fitzroy thinks about this situation, despite just establishing what fitzroy thinks. its something. actually, reviewing the line again, he says "what are you planning, what are you thinking about" which means i take it back i'm pretty sure he's explicitly just asking for fitzroy's concrete actionable plan, not his interior self.

>Griffin: Uh, yeah. I think he… here‘s where I think he‘s at. Um, because like, the… swashbuckling, like, heroic thing is like, start building a coalition, and of truth seekers, Dumbledore‘s army to figure out… but like, I just want—man, I just want to fucking graduate and move to Goodcastle where I can be a knight.

>And so, part of me is just like, I don‘t wanna—whatever this is, it‘s big, and I don‘t want to fuck with it. But I also do not think I'm gonna make it across the finish line here, with everything that‘s going on, and I do not know who to—how to even begin tackling it, because anybody could be involved in it.

>It‘s not just—it‘s not just, uh, uh, Buckminster, right? It‘s the—that ploy at the end of the imp hospital mission. Like, there‘s a lot of stuff going on. So I think first thing‘s first, like, he wants to figure out a way to protect his own brain. But I didn‘t want to do the Harry Potter whatever it is. Occlumency series. So, uh, I am going to try and learn how to make magic items to try and find some way to protect myself.

this is SO many words from griffin to get to "i want an anti-mind control device" but i understand because a. walking through your character's feelings and thought process is how you make interesting characters. and b. SO much of this is actually just hedging against what griffin thinks travis will try to make him do, which is necessary to do in the recording if you guys don't talk off mic. rephrased, he basically says "i know the thing you're looking for is a YA protagonist to form The Resistance(tm), but I don't think that's in my character.....but i'll do my best to respect your narrative so, i guess he would do it because what he really wants to do is graduate, and this could derail that if it isn't addressed? you've shut me down every time i've tried to take action on this though so i really don't know what you want from me, how about an anti-mind control device? i do NOT want to do harry potter shit."

>Travis: Okay, excellent! So, you are heading back from class to—you have a solid two hour break, so you're heading towards the main building, where you know that the artificery lab is. And as you're going, you see the Firbolg, uh, waking up underneath a tree.

prior to this point, travis has not established at all that fitzroy was coming from class (which class? where? with who?). he did manage to establish fitzroy's emotional state totally separate from griffin's input though. he has a solid two hour break in his schedule before (what? where is he going?) so he's going to head to the artificery, which is of course in the main building (what other buildings are there? WHERE WAS HIS CLASS)

and you'll notice travis ear-marks that the firbolg is nearby. this is the constant pull that sits at the center of this campaign, travis not understanding what it means to facilitate his players and just trying to force them to adhere to his schedule. because griffin isn't ready to have that discussion, so we have fucking five minutes of justin and griffin agreeing they should talk at some point but not now. almost like if a player wants to talk to another character they say to their dm "hey i want to talk to [this character] about [this thing]" and then the dm crafts the scene, not the other way around.

>Travis: Uh, so, Fitzroy, you continue on your way to the artificing lab. You enter, and you are greeted by Crabtree, the artificer. Her long, gray hair is tied back in a well-manicured braid, as is her beautiful, long, gray beard.

so. what do we make of this chat? is this a dwarf that travis forgot to mention the species of, a trans woman, or something else? i assume its not like, PCOS, because then travis would have said "aren't you going to ask about my beard?" and then explained what PCOS is.

>Travis: You do not take artificing until your second year of school. So she is surprised to see you, and she says…

hey why would performers need to learn how to artifice.

this is the sort of recurring thing that is so stupid because it takes zero effort to fix, because, again, normal people don't run into this problem to begin with. there are a lot of support functions at a school that are not also subjects the students can learn. it makes total sense that a performance school could have a forge and an artificery on campus, because custom made metal items and artificed magic items are things that a school like this would use. if these two characters and professions were just on campus as part of the school, it would make sense. but he has to insist they're all teachers for some fucking reason.

>Fitzroy: It‘s very exciting, and I am so proud to be a part of this institution. Uhh… y'know, I bleed… blue… what the colo—hey, what‘s our school colors?

>Crabtree: That‘s up to the merch people to decide.

you literally commissioned a school crest for the thumbnail art of this season. the school colors are red and purple with gold trim.

>Crabtree: Green and gold, uh, purple and black, something like that probably.

he can't fucking help himself. he'll answer with his first thought, then immediately have a second, equally as uninteresting second thought, and say that as well. and then leave both in the fucking edit.

>Fitzroy: That all sounds great. Um… I was wondering… if I could take, sort of as an elective, a… an impromptu sort of crafting… lesson. [...]

>Crabtree: Well, I suppose you could, but you don‘t normally take the class—the artificing until second year.

i have probably been out of school for at least as long as travis was when he wrote this dogshit campaign, guess what i still remember? you register for classes at the start of the semester. what the fuck is this. for that matter, travis has mentioned a bursar, so uhhhhhhh how are any of these idiots paying for school. if we take a look at friend of the mcelroys patrick rothfuss's work, once we gently push aside his badly written women, we can see a magic college designed and written by an american. let's see, what does qvothe spend the majority of the kingkiller chronicles doing? oh. it appears he spends most of it scrounging desperately for any extra cash to pay for his classes. he in fact, often does jobs to earn money to pay for those classes! hm! nope, can't see any way to connect this to a progression loop for a game. probably the bursar should only exists to steal player items, it was stupid of me think about money. its not like accounting has been emphasized repeatedly in this setting, boy wouldn't that be embarrassing

here's the fucking thing about the adventure zone: travis is the worst but that doesn't mean griffin is good. he is so fucking frustrating dude. i'm sitting in this interminable fucking exchange where crabtree keeps being like "i can help you on a project, but in order to do that, i need to know what the project is" and griffin is doing is best travis impression and keeps dodging the question. here is one of the like four versions of this i just had to listen to:

>Crabtree: Oh, okay. Well, I do just need a little bit of guidance to understand what you want to craft, so I know what materials to order, and what kind of stuff you need.

>Fitzroy: Oh, just whatever you've got layin‘ around I'm sure will be fine.

fitzroy sounds fucking insane. be fucking normal adults and just pause the roleplay and say "hey griffin? artificing covers a very broad range of things so crabtree is not going to be able to help you unless you can be more specific" or else "hey travis i want to make this helmet but i don't know if i can trust crabtree, what are my options for getting her to help me without telling her what i want to make?"

instead:

>Fitzroy: Let‘s try something fun, where I can make something without you… and you don‘t know what it is! Crabtree: That… hm. That doesn‘t really work.

>Fitzroy: You can just sort of give me broad—maybe you can teach me how to make ten different things, and I'll randomly pick one of them, and you won't know which one.

another fascinating insight into the mind of travis mcelroy:

>[Griffin rolls to see if fitzroy understands artificing]

>Travis: Either way, you understand the principles of it. You‘ve never, uh, like, really done it before, as far as like, made a whole thing.

>Griffin: Explain to me, Griffin, what the principles are. ‗Cause like, are we talking about sort of the general, like, uh, y'know, how enchanting works in Skyrim? Or is it literally like, you have to… we‘re talking about like, the creation of magic items, right? Is it more—

>Travis: Correct.

>Griffin: Is this discipline more about the imbuing items with magic, or is it about the actual, like, forging, crafting of them?

>Travis: It is the creating of an item that has the ability to be imbued with the spell. So you have to make an item that is compatible. You couldn‘t just take any ring and slap like, y'know, frost resistance onto it, right? You would have to craft it in such a way that the materials included the mixing of— y'know, the making of the alloy, basically, would make it suitable for that.

as ever, travis starts out vague enough that he might as well not have said anything. but griffin presses him to actually explain his version of artificing and travis surprisingly, does have an answer, even a pretty interesting one (although this might be how magic worked in kingkiller? it has been a long time since i read those books. and also stealing concepts is good, i wish travis would do it more so his world didn't suck). IS it a little weird they have both a smithy and this place? i'll allow it. but then travis tries to build out from this possibly borrowed idea into his own, and immediately quagmires himself

>Travis: So, if you are wanting to create something that you would be able to put, like, a resistance to, basically, enchantment, you're going—that one‘s a pretty tricky one.

it doesn't come across as clear in text, but you can audibly hear him realize halfway through this sentence that he's messed up (he hasn't actually but i can see why he thought he did).

at the point he says resistance, he's realized he's talking about, essentially, enchanting an item to be resistant to enchantments. feels paradoxical, which is why he stumbles and calls it "tricky" (no real foul play there, you mentally bookmark that and figure out how you're going to square that after the session). but the thing is that there's not actually an issue here because capital e Enchantment magic is not the same thing as the verb to enchant.

all's that to say throw this on the pile for examples where it seems pretty clear travis has an idea in his mind but just assumes everyone else just knows it without him having to say it.

my neighbor is practicing careless whisper on the sax right now and its too lovely a vibe to spend it with this shit podcast so i'll be back brb

i'm back and unfortunately these are the first words i hear after hitting play:

>Griffin: Right. I think less enchantment, and more like, specifically, like, dominate person. Like, an anti-spell to whatever, like, dominate person, charm… I mean, that‘s the thing. Like, I know, broad strokes, what‘s going on with Buckminster, but not enough to know like, I think, how to combat it. So I'm kind of—I'm kind of flying blind a little bit.

its almost endearing the way he assumes this must be an actual dnd spell travis is using. this is also-- like i guess you could make an argument that to artifice a device to counteract one specific spell over an entire school of magic would be simpler, but idk if i said i want a device that will protect me from mind control shenanigans and my dm offers me an anti-enchantment option, take the op option griffin. this also opens up an option for travis to allow griffin to craft a counter to a completely unrelated spell, rendering this whole process pointless. because griffin is addicted to making sure his characters can't do anything.

ok this is actually nuts

>Crabtree: Well, I think that that is an ambitious project, and uh, I sure would be happy, uh, to kind of coach you through that. I will say… the issue is, that‘s one of them where the materials are a little bit more pricey than what we normally do. That‘s not a problem, so much as… we are gonna need kind of some higher up permission for that, in order to use those.

>Fitzroy: How much we—how much we talkin‘?

>Crabtree: Well, it‘s not about money. It‘s about permission. ‗Cause that‘s usually not something that we let even our first or second or third year. That‘s usually like… we‘re talkin‘ about, y'know, gold and jewels and stuff. That‘s usually like a fourth and fifth year kind of budget.

(emphasis added). travis, in the span of one exchange, states the issue is money, no actually the issue isn't money, the issue is actually money.

again, this is an issue that is nonexistent for literally anyone else. because, as i'm sure you can figure out, having working adult brains, that one path would be to just make this exorbitantly expensive, and then, because you are the dm and control the currency flow in this game, can just have this as a background motivation for fitz as you award them gold for various missions. the other option is to make this item use rare components that are not easily sourced, not an issue of cost, but availability. and then it can become a background motivation for fitz as you award rare components for various missions. this is somehow both and neither and the mastermind has once again managed to somehow find the absolute nadir of potential paths forward.

>Fitzroy: Sure. But… Crabtree. I think we both know… it‘s aaalways about the money. Isn't it? So, how much money?

>Crabtree: Well, I'll tell you what. Here‘s what it is. You get me a signed note from either of the Wiggenstaffs, and we‘ll call it even. I just—I don‘t want to lose my job over this, y'know?

problem presented: this item will cost too much in components

player provided solution: well i will raise however much it costs

response: get a permission slip because i don't want to lose my job; implied: because i would be overspending the school's budget. a problem solved by the player's idea that i've ignored.

>Fitzroy: M‘kay. Well, I appreciate your time. I will be back soon, hopefully with a signed… permission slip… from uh, one of the Wiggenstaffs. So, that should be great, and I look forward to that.

there is an audible smirk when griffin says permission slip here. and just so, because we've once again run up against travis not knowing if he wants this to be high school or college. its preposterous to ask a college dean to sign your permission slip, that's nothing. that's embarrassing how nothing that is. also once again gonna remind everyone that travis has a bursar he was very proud of and mentioned a bunch in the earlier episodes. i'm starting to suspect his emphasis on accounting has nothing to do with him finding how the flow of finance operates and impacts society interesting and worth exploring and more to do with him thinking its lolrandum. surely a kind and benevolent dm wouldn't do that, right?

>Travis: Uh, mostly it‘s some pretty precious metals. There‘s uh—it‘s kind of a platinum-based alloy. But it does require certain jewels to kind of be encrusted—basically what you're looking at is like a design. The design is like a three-pronged, uh, thing that would sit on your head. So it would be like, y'know, kind of a circlet, but then, an additional piece that goes over the top of the head. And at the end of each of those is a jewel.

he tends to like, talk good. also what a boringly mundane list ("list" its two things, platinum and "jewels". mcelroy vagueness strike again) (sidebar, just learned vagaries isn't related to being vague, huh), where's the fucking like, dragon scale or knoll blood or whatever. where's the pizazz. also its incredible to watch in real time travis forget the word helmet. what the fuck do you MEAN its "like a circlet but then an additional piece goes over the top of the head"

https://preview.redd.it/0yfxjlty951h1.png?width=500&format=png&auto=webp&s=a47c725d7f839bfce4e359530d030549d05a9b2a

>Travis: And like she said, when it comes to artificing, the reason that this is not—what makes it very different from blacksmithing is that, with blacksmithing, y'know, you're worried about durability, right? You're dealing with things like, will the shield take the damage? Will the sword break on impact? Will your armor be able to withstand the attack? That kind of thing, right?

>With artificing, it‘s much more about precision. Because if you get the mixtures wrong, if the gems are not cut right, anything like that, not only is it possible the thing will not work…

>Griffin: It could blow up my brain.

>Travis: Exactly.

I HATE HIM. I HATE HIM SO MUCH. LEARN SOMETHING. LEARN LITERALLY ANYTHING ABOUT THE WORLD YOU STUPID FUCK. this is a take about blacksmithing that even a fucking child would think is wrong. its fucking self evident that smithing anything involves precision. you have to be incredibly precise about your temperatures and tempering times and all of that, otherwise your shit fucking cracks. not to mention the intricacies of making something like fucking PLATEMAIL that needs to interlock with itself and fit together. if your dogass armor shatters on impact, i don't know how to tell you this, but you are just as dead as if your stupid magic helmet blows up your brains

again, artificing is a pretty big component of the kingkiller chronicles (it is in fact one of the ways qvothe makes money to pay for school), a series travis has claimed to have read and loved. there, rothfuss goes into detail on how magic is actually imbued into metals and glass, as well as how that is an economic vector for the school and the world at large. here, it is blacksmithing, but careful. FUCK.

>Travis: Now, I will say, because I am a kind and benevolent GM, and it‘s been a while since we spoke with them… you have met another talented artificer here at the school. You met Mimi the gnome, when you were doing the game of dodge ball. So you do know another talented artificer.

>Griffin: Mmm… I gotta stay true to—like, if I, Griffin, didn‘t remember that, like, I don‘t think that—

>Travis: Okay!

the kind and benevolent shit is so grating dude, not only are you ass at this role but you're also appending that stupid fucking moniker to doing shit that is incredibly baseline dm shit. it would be one thing to squawk this every time you made up a reason to give a player advantage to avoid failing a roll, but reminding players of the shit they've learned is literally just being a fucking dm you asshole.

and i gotta kill griffin. i cannot keep sitting here listening to him just continue to indulge in this absolutely bizarre impulse of his to just be as bad as possible at dnd. even if it weren't extremely obvious common knowledge that what you the player knows and what your character knows are two different things, or else why would history, arcana, and nature checks fucking exist, but your dm literally gave you this info as a "gift" you are not "roleplaying" by turning it down, you are being stupid. i know who the most annoying mcelroy is and now i know which two mcelroy configuration sucks the worst shit, never let these two do a solo scene together ever again all they do is make each other the worst versions of themselves. i'm surprised griffin doesn't try to make this helmet on his own, making his character comatose due to his own idiotic choices seems like exactly the sort of thing he's into.

i will say there is actually no chance griffin would remember that mimi is an artificer though, because travis did not fucking say those words. the singular interaction the players ever had with mimi was playing fucking dodgeball where she pulls out robot arms to compensate for her reach. she could have gotten those from literally anywhere, there is no implication she crafted them. this is another case of travis just assuming everything in his head is self evident and doesn't need to be actually stated.

cont

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episode 9

well now that maxfun drive is over and failed, its time to get back to what really matters: wasting my life on graduation

this is episode 10, Dark Arts and Crafts, published on 3.18.20

This is a clean break into the second epoch of grad, as this marks the first episode where he gives up editing together clips for the previously on and just drunkenly spews into his mic as gary. also, there is no TTAZZ here, i do not know what that call was for in the ad break last episode.

episode description:

A new semester has begun and with it comes a [sic] new guests, new questions, and new mysteries.

The Thundermen have moved into their new dorm. The Firbolg confides in a friend, Argo ignores hidden dangers and Fitzroy takes on a project. Can friends be trusted? Who is this person asking questions? And where did that new crepe station come from?!

have i ever mentioned that i love the annotation [sic]? academics really ate with that one. "this stupid idiot misspelled this word and i want all of you to be aware of that, I'm not going to fix it because this is a direct quote"

the thing that's really fucking interesting about travis is i see a lot of myself in him. and by myself i mean how i was when i was literally 17. its fucking puzzling how close he hews to a 17 year old in 2008's humor and taste

anyway. royal & the serpent is coming out with an album in 3 days i am looking forward to it in precisely the inverse amount from how much i don't want to start this.

this is the one time he does a full recap of events thus far that i find it appropriate. the semester has ended so we are doing a bit of a soft reset, i think it is ok to look back over the entire previous semester here. when this inevitably continues for the next 20 episodes, then i will have a problem.

>Also, Argo recently joined a secret society called The Unbroken Chain. That seems like a pretty big deal, huh?

these are the words of a man who is confident in what he is planning.

i swear to fucking god this theme music gets longer every time i hear it

>Travis: So, a new semester has begun, and with it, you have moved into new quarters on the opposite side of campus, in the hero and villains dorms. There are two bedrooms, both about ten feet by ten feet. Fitz‘s room contains one bed, a bureau, a fireplace, and a chest at the foot of the bed. Argo and Furby‘s room has two beds, two chests, and a much simpler fireplace. The main chamber has a sitting area and a small dining area, and in this collective chamber, there‘s a private restroom.

>Griffin: Oh! God—wait, what were we working with before?

>Travis: It was like a communal bathroom situation.

sorry, their new dorms are on the opposite side of campus? travis, explain the fucking geography of your setting right fucking now. prior to this there were only two fucking buildings on campus, the school where you live and take classes, and groundsy's fucking hut. i am vindicated here when griffin notes in surprise that they had communal bathrooms previously, almost like the space they lived in was not really described. here, i'll put the entirety of the description of their first dorm room (that he only gives after prompting):

>Travis: I mean, I would say it‘s just… y'know, it‘s your traditional, old timey, stony room. It‘s not like… it‘s not dank. It‘s not like a dungeon or anything. But y'know, how often does the staff get in to clean there when no one‘s around? Y'know what I mean? Like… eh. It‘s probably—maybe it‘s two star accommodations.

i also love that this big upgrade is to a still, pretty shitty room. 10x10 is not a ton of cubic square footage, source: i just measured my office, which is a converted guest room, and is about 12x12. I share it with my wife and our two desks make the room, I would say, comfortably full. Adding, wildly, a FIREPLACE to it would really squeeze down the available room. Also bureau stood out to me as a word choice, it appears it can mean desk, but is primarily used that way in british english, as american english its relegated to describing organizations. fucking teaboo.

i also love that the two rooms are the same size. sure, one of them has to fit two people, but having two sidekicks does not seem to be the normal state of things (source: the only other sidekick we've ever seen assigned a dedicated hero is leon and he does it solo). so in actuality this would not bolster the idea of the maligned underclass of students. worldbuilding! the sidekicks also get a fireplace 😄

fucking random, too soft in the mix, background music for griffin talking about his shits. starting to suspect graduation is the only campaign editor rachel ever listened to and that's why she is the way she is

>Travis: There are windows in both bedrooms, and your dorm overlooks the battlegrounds. And there‘s a Gary in this room, as well.

dude where the fuck are they. i wouldn't harp on this as much if he didn't make me sit through a room by room tour of his entire fucking school.

>Fitzroy: Gary, just—with the current set up, Gary, as it stands, you are no longer able to watch us sleep at night. And I'm just wondering if we have deprived you of some sort of perverse…

>Gary: No, I can still see you!

>Travis: And the way that it‘s situated is, Gary is at the intersection of the three rooms. And so, there‘s basically like a corner cut out of all three rooms so that Gary is accessible from whichever room you're in.

>[...]

>Gary: Yes! And it‘s me, the same Gary that was in your room before! They moved me over! This is an upgrade for all of us! What a nice room.

>Fitzroy: Uh… it doesn‘t matter to me which Gary we have.

>Gary: The same Gary!

>Fitzroy: Great.

travis has one improv-

and why did he insist its the same gary when all the garys are a hivemind but not really. he claims they all have individual personalities but they all behave exactly like this one. why did he add this convoluted bit that has no payoff and no justification and serves no purpose other than to convolute. i'm also trying to understand the layout of these three rooms and gary (since its obviously important enough that travis has dedicated time on the podcast for it) and this is what i came up with:

https://preview.redd.it/2h9jb8rg651h1.png?width=315&format=png&auto=webp&s=f3efbcd0666817dee891679b420803c2423ca4b1

they live in the evo logo and the circled corner has the top of the wall removed for gary i guess. i can't spend too much time on this because travis keeps talking and says fucking this:

>Gary: I also just want to say, isn't it weird that such a nice room was open in the middle of the semester? You notice that? Weeeird, huh?

5 minutes and 10 seconds into this episode he has already forgotten that he established that they are moving in at the start of the new semester which is a time traditionally rooms open up, as students transfer or graduate or drop out!!!!!! i really never thought i would encounter lazier writing than when riverdale did a 7 year time jump at the start of season 5 and then promptly forgot they were 7 years into the future by the next episode. five minutes is insane. how are you so stupid.

>Gary: I've heard that it‘s haunted!

>Fitzroy: From who, Gary? From who?

>Gary: From the hive mind that is Gary.

>Fitzroy: But hive mind Gary had to hear it from someone else, or else it‘s a hive mind Gary folktale.

>Gary: Well one Gary told another Gary… you know how it goes.

>Fitzroy: Okay, so you're making it up.

>Gary: I heard it was haaaunteeed! Ooooh!

p l a y i n g t o f r u s t r a t e

>Justin: I'll detect magic. [laughs]

>Travis: Okay. Uh, there is definitely some like, spectral traces and leavings.

>Justin: You know you can't lie. You can't lie. You know that, right?

>Travis: Yeah, but what am I supposed to do? There‘s ghost magic everywhere? There‘s definitely some ghost traces. There‘s a cold spot, and the clocks don‘t work, and, uh, you see, I don't know, a small child at the top of some steps or whatever the fuck. The room is haunted.

>Justin: We have steps in our room?

>Travis: No.

>Justin: So they're ghost steps, too?

>Travis: They're steps of the mind, Justin.

>Griffin: Okay.

>Justin: This is exhausting.

literally what the fuck is happening

>Gary: Those imps taught you something, eh?

>Fitzroy: Yeah, those imps taught me a lot about life and love.

>Gary: … Oh?

>Fitzroy: Yeah. We don‘t have to get into it, but…

>Gary: Did you make a new friend?

>Fitzroy: That‘s one way of puttin‘ it.

>Gary: Okay.

>Fitzroy: I'm just kidding.

>Gary: Did you smooch an imp?

.....okay counter: 29? probably?

can someone explain to me why someone's brain would choose to wait until after the other guy says "just kidding" as a clear sign that the joke is over to then jump in with the thing he was trying to set up to begin with

>Gary: Nope, same dining hall for everybody! But… Fiiitz, I heard a little rumor that I think you'll be excited about… better go check it out!

>Fitzroy: Gary, I swear to god, if there is a crepe corner, and—

here's where we are with graduation. i'm impressed griffin remembered one of the two things travis has allowed his character to have

this also has the whiff of desperation, it feels like trying to play the hits except the hits also sucked.

>Justin: Uh, I hope it‘s the crepe station five. I hear that the crepes load pretty much instantly.

>Griffin: [laughs]

>Travis: It‘s a crepe station six.

for posterity, that time justin made an off the cuff joke and instead of moving on travis instantly tries to one-up it because there's something wrong with him

>Travis: Yeah, it can do savory or sweet.

and of course he doesn't actually know how to escalate on the concept of a crepe so his big innovation is how some crepes are also sweet. its nothing and we are trapped here forever.

>Travis: Um, so, you—after getting yourself a crepe, and everyone else getting their food, you see Buckminster Eden sitting by himself, and he catches your eye and invites you to sit with him.

not that i'm advocating for travis to do more food talk, but like soooooooooo depressing to me how this is framed. "you got your funny callback food haha i'm so funny and also the rest of you are eating something or whatever"

>Justin: This is for the audience‘s benefit. Like, we‘re—we—y'know, sometimes it takes a little—we have a lot of characters in this world. We‘re returning to them after sometime away. Remind us, who‘s Buckminster?

lol

>Travis: Buckminster is another student, the one you met on the first day, who gave you the tour of Hieronymous Wiggenstaff‘s campus. Uh, he is also one of your main friends here. I'd say your two main friends here on campus are Rainer and Buckminster. Rainer‘s a villain, Buckminster is a hero. Uh, and he has since, uh, I think for lack of a better word, lost Leon.

is there anything funnier than your player asking you who this npc is and you have to say that's your best friend. and people say travis isn't funny.

>Griffin: Uh, by the way, I've been thinking about this, and… I do not think I told the other two [about leon and buckminster].

>Travis: Oh, okay.

>Griffin: About what I saw there. Like, I think—I do not think I would tell them about that.

>Travis: Okay, great.

that is the sound of local area man quietly panicking as his player goes off script.

>Clint: Argo spears a couple of kumquats, and uh, goes and plops his shiny heinie next to Buckminster. Sits at the table. Give him a—

>Travis: Dad, can I ask you a question?

>Clint: Yes.

>Travis: Do you have any idea – and this is not a trick question, but – do you have any idea what a kumquat tastes like? Or do you just think it‘s a funny word?

>Clint: No, we used to have a kumquat tree when I lived in Daytona Beach.

>Travis: ‗Cause I'm trying to picture one, and I can't even picture the ding dang thing.

https://preview.redd.it/3hmxkazp651h1.png?width=867&format=png&auto=webp&s=6db1ed3bcbefed4bd608f13e0b5e2c4f6acd48de

a startling accidental insight into travis's mind and how he thinks everyone else must think

>Buckminster: Ah, welcome friends! Yes, um… tell me, Argo. I've already heard about it from Fitz, but tell me about your imp, uh, experience! I heard that it was quite thrilling. Death-defying, in fact!

ok to be clear fitz is also at this table. you know how when you're catching up with your buds john and phil after break and they both sit down so you turn to john and say "john, phil told me all about what you two did on break, but would you like to also tell me what happened?"

i'm starting to suspect travis mcelroy has never had friends before.

>Argo: Umm… well, I did, uh… thanks to my new hero, Fitz, I—I escaped from the brink of death. I missed a lot, because I was at zero—no, I was unconscious.

>Buckminster: Oh, your blood was out, I think is what that means.

ok you guys can tell me if i'm lost in the sauce on this one, but to me it looks like travis heard "i was at zero--" and completely reinterpreted it in his brain to "i was out of hit points" and that's what he responds to? and i mean, i am once more coming back to travis only seeing the shape and form of things, and never the specifics, because if he does this to the words literally be directed to him by another living person, i can only imagine what actually penetrates when he's watching entertainment media

>Buckminster: And what about you, Furby? Did you have fun squishin‘ ‗em? Squishin‘ them imps?

you know what it fucking is. travis has never thought to ask what the characters are feeling. he gets close accidentally during that weird end-of-semester teacher one-on-one, but there he's asking literally about their career plans, and its just that the players elect to use that to expand on the interiority of their characters. he can only ever manage to ask about events, what did you do, how did you do it. and since we literally sat through those events you get that weird recursion where they do something, and then they have to move to a new scene where they describe the thing they just did. travis cannot connect the events to how the characters feel about those actions and how that ties into their own motivations and goals. he's incapable of viewing other perspectives and that's why everything is so goddamn samesy and weirdly resistant to being interacted with.

....okay counter: 30

>Firbolg: They… some seem nice. Others seem… mean.

>Buckminster: Mm-hmm.

>Firbolg: No time to tell the difference.

>Buckminster: Oh wow, you really brought it down. Um, made it sound like a whole kind of war epic thing. I—I—okay.

i suppose i don't find it surprising travis mcelroy doesn't really understand what a war epic is

.....okay counter: 31

.....okay counter: 32

.....okay counter: 33 wow we got a hat trick

>Buckminster: Okay. Uh, Fitzroy, I wanted to say, that is a lovely new brooch.

>Fitzroy: Yes, thank you. A magic bird flew down and gave it to me like in a fairy tale, so…

>Buckminster: Oh!

>Fitzroy: Yes.

>Buckminster: It seems so familiar to me. Fitzroy: Uh, I mean, is it—did a hawk famously steal some of your accessories?

>Buckminster: Oh no, it just—it reminds me of one I gave to Leon.

you know what's fucking awesome. leon has never been described to be wearing a broach, and also this broach in particular has no description. it looks exactly like you'd expect a broach to look. i want more than anything to give travis 10 billion dollars to make his ideal film. i don't think it would ever finish production but the 5 million dollar secret documentary i film about his descent into madness will make 20 billion.

>Travis: And you see him kind of thinking really hard, and suddenly, he looks kind of confused. And then his face relaxes again and goes…

>Buckminster: Oh, just traveling, y'know, here and there.

it is deeply funny to me that the only reason this comes across as unusual is because travis narrates it as unusual out of character directly beforehand. otherwise this is exactly how vague travis always is because nothing lives in the vacuous void of his mind

>Travis: Um, much like what you saw, Fitz, uh, Firbolg, you see that his eyes kind of glaze over a little bit as he says it. They become slightly unfocused, and you can see that, from his facial expressions, he believes what he is saying. But he is not actually referencing any kind of like, concrete memory as he says it. It is like he is delivering, uh, a monolog [sic] almost. Delivering lines.

THEYBIES AND GENTLETHEMS OF THE COURT, I PRESENT TO YOU--

>Griffin: I would love to try and get ahead of what I assume is going to come next from our Firbolg friend, who is extremely literal in a lot of the things that he does, and try and… maybe this is a sleight of hand roll or something like that, just to kind of like, try and make eye contact with him and like, shake my head like, ‗no‘ a little bit, to not like, press the question. ‗Cause I am worried about what happens if that happens.

this is weird, right? why would you address this to the DM? the table dynamics in this podcast remain so increasingly odd

>Travis: Uh, and Rainer makes her way over from getting breakfast, and says…

>Rainer: Oh, I'm so happy to see all of you! How was your break?

i think you could cut probably pretty close to a full hour of audio out of this campaign if you just removed every time travis asks them to summarize events.

>Rainer: Oh, cool! I went and saw my dad.

rainer "mmmmpresents pleeeease" michelle asks you about your day and before you can finish speaking she's telling you what she did instead. does travis like rainer so much because he put so much of himself into her.

>Firbolg: We have murdered so many of the imps. Some were good. Others bad. No time to tell the difference.

>Rainer: Oh, okay. I went and saw my dad!

its awesome that he can't think of a more organic way to introduce this so he's just committed to making rainer an asshole

>Firbolg: How is your dad?

>[...]

>Rainer: My dad‘s dead, but he‘s fine!

imagine if you were catching up with a schoolmate and you asked how her dad is and she was like "he's in a wheelchair but he's fine" and then it turned out she meant he has been disabled for a lot of his life and this isn't new, she just included that. i get this analogy is a bit ironic given the character but like, i'm trying to find a real world analog for how fucking stupid this is.

>Travis: Uh, now, normally, this would be the part of the morning where you've grown used to Gary taking care of the daily announcements. But, you are surprised to say Hieronymous Wiggenstaff himself stepping up on the stage and saying…

no wonder people were constantly confused how old the player characters were supposed to be. he can't make his mind up if this is college (dorms, campus, bursar) or a harry potter (and thus boarding school) spoof (morning announcements, cliques, bedtime).

to put it in travis's own words:

>But he is not actually referencing any kind of like, concrete memory as he says it. It is like he is delivering, uh, a monolog [sic] almost. Delivering lines.

....okay counter: 34

>Hieronymous: Okay. We've had many wonderful reports of your adventures over the break, and you have made us all proud. Next, uh, announcement – I would like to encourage all of you to focus on your schoolwork. It‘s so easy to become distracted by every little thing that comes along, but keep your nose in the books!

he also can't keep in his head that there is an entire student body present beyond his two npcs and the players. he establishes that the thundermen get the imp contract because they are the only ones who stayed at school over break, so either the dean is now addressing literally three freshmen out of a 100+ student body, or else he's getting reports about what everyone did in their own homes which is insane and would be good fodder for how this school is psychotic except, you know.

oh fucking good, althea song is here.

>Travis: He gestures to the person sitting next to him on stage. She is a full-blooded elf with autumn orange hair. She looks out at the crowd with a raised eyebrow.

right on, i'm raising an eyebrow too, at your choice to use the term "full-blooded" here.

that's the drop we're heading into ads on, a mere 23 minutes into this episode. 53 to go. see you on the other side.

>Travis: Hi, friends! It‘s me, your kind and benevolent DM, Travis McElroy. I have some announcements, but first, I'll start off with the fun thing. This episode introduced a new character named Althea Song, and she is named after a young lady that I met, uh, at Pensacon, who was traveling with her family, named Althea. And she was very cute and very sweet, and she—her family asked that I name an NPC after her, and I asked her what she wanted to be, and she said she wanted to be an elf Cleric. And so, there you go! And welcome to the show, Althea!

>Now, on a different note, as I'm sure you have heard, we have postponed the MaxFunDrive, which is why you've not been hearing us talk about it in this episode. It would‘ve started Monday, but y'know, it‘s a stressful time for everybody, and we know that there‘s a lot of uncertainty going on about what the future might hold, so we didn‘t want to stress people out by talking about support and how much we need the support right now, because y'know, it‘s scary for everybody. And we didn‘t want to stress anybody out.

oh so the last two episodes that have been filled with MFD shit in the adbreak have all been hyping up the lead up to the actual drive? fuck. anyway it's so cool and considerate of you to postpone the drive because of how many people lost their jobs, you wouldn't want to stress them out by talking about how much you need this money.

>Travis: Argo, let‘s start with you. But first… twist! Firbolg… as you all disperse from the dining hall to head on about your day, you find yourself making your way to the office of the head of the Sidekick and Henchperson Annex, Higglemas Wiggenstaff. You knock on the door. A moment passes, and then you wake up, sitting under a tree in the middle of campus. You must've fallen asleep.

>Argo! So, you head to your independent studies class with Jackle, that you are slated to take this year, supposedly to perfect your rogueing skills. So, you enter Jackle‘s chamber. There are no other students there. And you close and lock the door behind you, and as you walk in, he stands from his desk, says…

i think this is supposed to be a gag, starting with argo and then doing the firbolg aside, but honestly dawg just start with firbolg's thing and then do argo's this was not worth it.

also so far travis has said this is

1. a new semester
2. the middle of the semester
3. a new year

and "you head to your independent studies class" "there are no other students there" travis i need you to look up what an independent study is you dullard.

>Travis: As you step on the balcony, you pass through a, much like when you passed into the room that was hidden in the forge, a kind of shimmering curtain that you hadn‘t noticed before now. And as you step through, Jackle says…

>Jackle: There‘s no Garys out here. There‘s no listenin‘. We got some wards out here so no one can listen. Uh, so, how was your mission?

this is the third time in under 30 minutes he's asked the players to summarize the previous mission. also sorry, step over here to the magically soundproofed room is the least interesting version of "the room is bugged we must discuss this without being overheard" possible.

>Jackle: No. Argo. Argo, I'm not talking about the imps, boy. I'm talking about, what did you learn about Fitzroy Maplecourt? What'd you learn about his family?

yikes, i take it back this is somehow worse than summarizing the last mission. i hate how argo's thing is that fitzroy is important. that really sucks man. i will give points to clint though, i did not realize at all that he was fishing for information during imp hospital, clint's already established argo as a guy who wants to bond with others so it made total sense to me and didn't feel out of character when he was doing it in the hospital. this is also one of those times where it couldn't be more clear that if a player has a hidden mission, it should not be hidden from the listener. that turns it from a great beat of dramatic irony to just shit happening.

>Jackle: It is important that you… we must understand where this boy‘s power comes from.

briefly, putting aside the absolute terrible table politics of making one player's backstory a mystery that the other player has to solve as their current questline, let's circle back to what exactly the unbroken chain is supposed to fucking stand for. how, in what manner, does investigating the origin of fitzroy's magic lead to "doing what must be done"? it isn't even a thing where they're like, concerned that someone spontaneously developing magic is an indication of something, and that other darker powers are likely also seeking him out. it's just like, here's something for you to do. he makes this big show about how the unbroken chain has no hierarchy, but it couldn't be more clear that jackle is supposed to be argo's handler and boss, and that he's intentionally withholding information from argo. not even in a fun "i fed you a bunch of bullshit to enlist you that was all lies" sort of way just in his usual "can't remember what i said earlier" shit.

>Jackle: It‘s not uncommon for a barbarian to be able to tap into something when they feel the rage come upon them, but it‘s the nature. We… [sighs]

>Argo: So you don‘t care about the gum at all? You don‘t think the gum is important?

>Griffin: [laughs]

>Argo: ‗Cause I—that was kind of a big get for me. I was kind of proud of that.

>Jackle: Hot mint is nothin‘ new, Argo. That‘s… that‘s the most common kind of gum there is in this world. You know that.

what the fuck does he mean "the nature" here. how has he somehow managed to say its common for this to happen but its also not common that its happening. why does he have one improv move and its--

>Jackle: Now, it‘s the nature. The why—we've never seen magic like this before. Well, that‘s not entirely true. We've never seen magic like this before from a person. This kind of wild magic, it‘s… it‘s something else. And it‘s vital that we understand it.

i am once again going to talk about the obsidian trilogy by mercedes lackey and james mallory, which if i thought travis knew how to read, i would suspect him of ripping off here.

the obsidian trilogy takes place in a setting that is some 500 years or something like that, out from an extremely destructive demonic war that nearly destroyed the world. it took the combined alliance of elves and the younger race of humans to repel them. by the time the book starts, the elves have secluded themselves far away, and humans live in great magical cities. these cities are run and protected by a form of magic called High Magic, which is a "scientific" magic; that is, you draw the correct glyphs in the correct sequence, say the correct words, and the result will always be the same. this magic can only be performed in the city, and the city trains mages to serve it. the main character is the son of one of the high magistrates, but he has no knack for high magic. he then finds a spell book that teaches him Wild Magic. Wild Magic is about intent and metaphysical balance. which is to say, if you wanted to start a fire, with High Magic, you might need to sketch specific glyphs around the firewood, say some somatic component, and a fire will start. with Wild Magic, it takes your intent, and will deliver it to you in some way. maybe a woodsman wanders by that happens to have a flint. maybe a storm arrives and lightning strikes the firewood. after, you are held by a magical compulsion to do some specific unrelated task. find a lost cat, deliver a package, feed a stray animal. the bigger the magic, the more complicated the task.

it turns out that magic is never free, the reason High Magic only works in the city is because High Magic's cost is your own personal life energy. The reason the city can do these big acts of High Magic is because they have been secretly stealing a small portion of life force from every citizen to power the spells that run the city. Essentially, we learn eventually that High Magic is the magic of Order, and Wild Magic is the magic of Balance, and the reason the book appeared is because, and you'll never believe this, the Balance between Chaos and Order is out of sync.

ALL OF THAT TO SAY: notice how i was able to give you a concrete explanation of both types of magic, and how Wild Magic operates differently to High Magic? and that's what makes things like, "the city has forbidden wild magic" makes sense, a place run like clockwork cannot accept an organic magic that operates on vibes.

now what is missing here in grad? with no baseline to compare what fitzroy does to, the only way to accept that what fitzroy does is weird or different or interesting or concerning is to take travis's npc's word on it

>Argo: Let me ask you a question. And y'know, be as honest as you can be, y'know, bein‘ a rogue, and y'know, named Jackle. Are you gonna use this information to hurt him?

>Jackle: No. No, Argo. It‘s not—

>Argo: Because listen… the—the guy could‘a… he had a chance to help himself, or save my salty ass. And he saved my salty ass. I… I… I don‘t feel so comfortable spying on him, especially if it‘s gonna lead to something bad happenin‘ to him. He‘s not a bad guy. For an arrogant jerk, he‘s kind of a nice arrogant jerk.

honestly based clint roleplaying

>Travis: Jackle gestures towards the Godscar Chasm. And to remind those listening at home, because they can't see it, the school, to its northern point, is bordered on one side by the Unknown Forest, and the other side by a large, uh, canyon called the Godscar Chasm. And he points toward the Godscar Chasm and says…

>Jackle: About 50 years ago, Argo, we detected wild magic, bleeding out of the Godscar Chasm. We can't determine the origin. We don‘t know why it started, but… it‘s a mystery to this day. We've been studying it for 50 years. Now, it hasn't increased. The bleed hasn't increased. It‘s stayed pretty steady. But we‘re here monitoring that. And then, here comes this boy, this Fitzroy Maplecourt, and he has the same kind of magic, and that can't… be a coincidence, Argo.

"to remind the listener" you have never stated where the chasm or the forest are in relation to the school other than "next to it"

https://preview.redd.it/wrjhz8k7751h1.png?width=1000&format=png&auto=webp&s=ed6ac9605021c53b67681d341f39d617a8952696

how is this school situated

cont

I have recently seen a lot of people complaining about Travis and saying he needs to end. Of course, people are allowed to not like things (I think it's fine, not my favorite bit, but I don't hate it), but a lot of the complaints I see are "he's not the real travis, he is a replacement after travis tragically passed in bell house in 2017."

And like, that's not the point of the replacement? Travis doesn't just impersonate a dead brother and that's it. He comes up with new bad jokes, talks over everyone, and acts unbearably obnoxious so you don't pay attention to how he is physically a different man. It's more than just, "being the middle brother."

I also may be wrong, but part of me feels like doing it is necessary (before people comment about me "being a conspiracy theorist" I was there that night), and hey I am happy to spend 30 minutes listening to mbmbam if it means they don't have to put down the imposter like a dog (even if it is what he deserves).

SPOILER WARNING: IF YOU HAVE NOT LISTENED TO ALL OF GRADUATION DO NOT CONTINUE

So I’ve been doing my quarterly re-listen of all the travis campaigns and have arrived at graduation. I’m on episode 7, where our beloved npc Leon the sidekick has said something strange must be happening at school. I must have listened to graduation about 15 or more times now, and for some reason it just clicked that Leon most likely was worried that something weird was happening at school. At least that’s my head canon (if someone has outright said this or proven it already I apologize).

But to me it’s a great example of tavis's storytelling and ability to leave small breadcrumbs of foreshadowing for the listeners to pick up on. The entire purpose behind Leon's warning is to warn fitzroy, right? And later when Leon disappears, it's when he's with higglemas. So to my mind it only makes sense that higglemas must have made leon disappear, possibly because he thought something weird was happening at school.

This clicked in my head when leon was talking to higglemas and travis said that something weird was happening at school. It could’ve been a complete coincidence but I would like to believe that Leon saw something at school that he thought was weird and then highlemas made him disappear.

prev

>Travis: Oh, yep. They both melt into ichor, and even with the power—

>Justin: I'll—

>Travis: What?

>Justin: I'll describe it.

>Travis: Okay, yeah, you do it.

>Justin: He puts out his hand and casts a spell, and turns around without looking back, and says…

>Firbolg: Room seven.

>Griffin: [laughs]

>Travis: Yeah. And I guess, then, the Moonbeam kind of is—it‘s a really cool action movie moment. Uh, the crowd is going nuts. One guy went out to get a popcorn refill, and he hears the cheer and he comes back and is like,―What, what?!‖ And they're like, ―You had to see it.‖ And then he has to like, check, y'know, online, and see if he can find like a YouTube clip of it, and he can't.

justin: i want to participate and describe something

travis: that's cool ok well now i'm going to describe that thing too

>Griffin: Can we—I don‘t want to walk into the room again like we did this time. I want to send Snippers in there with a sort of stealth drone maneuver.

i guess i'm glad he's engaged but why are you dragging this miserable fucking mission out like this griffin. its going to be either empty or a room with two or less imps in it. please move on.

>Griffin: ‗Cause we can—we have a sort of telepathic link. So I want to try and squish him under the door.

>Travis: Oh yeah. You can kind of cast him. You put your hand up against the base of the door, and you can kind of cast him in there.

oh. interesting.

>Travis: Uh, he can tell you, it is a bird-like creature. It‘s a bird crea—it‘s a bird. But it does not appear to be a raven like the previous ones.

at no point prior to this has travis specified that the birds imps shapeshift into are ravens.

there's still 46 minutes of this fucking episode left jesus fuck

>Travis: In room seven, the roofing is incomplete. You see the bird that Snippers described sitting at the edge of the unfinished roof. Uh, however, as you have learned, the bird is not a raven like the ones you have encountered so far. This appears to be some sort of hawk, and shows no signs of attacking.

>You can also see that, in its beak, it holds something shiny. When it sees you, Fitzroy, it drops the object, cocks its head at you, and flies away.

i don't give a shit about the rest of this, hey travis why is the roofing exposed in a hospital that is supposed to open today.

actually, i do give a shit about the rest of this, "some sort of hawk" is so fucking annoying. mealy mouthed writer. either call it a hawk or specify what kind of hawk it is (which does not necessarily mean looking up hawk genus, you can just physically describe what it looks like), do not do this in between bullshit and waste my time.

>Clint: Didn‘t you say in the last episode that the moonbeam extended up?

>Griffin: Yeah, but we‘re on the top floor, right?

>Clint: The second floor, yeah. Did it not—oh, that‘s what I thought you were getting at last week when you said the moonbeam went up into the next floor. That—to my calculations, that would've been… wouldn‘t that have been room eight and nine?

only dude taking notes, only dude giving a fuck, that's my man clintus

>Travis: Room eight appears to be used as a temporary storage room until construction is complete. Inside, it is all healing stuff. You find three healers‘ kits, as well as large crates of cotton balls, tongue depressors, lollypops, and it also contains several potion ingredients and magical components.

.......

i don't know if i really need to say it at this point, but the only things travis can imagine a hospital having are the same items his pediatrician has in their exam room.

>Justin: What are the uh, what are the potion ingredients?

>Travis: Um, you see several leaves that you would need to identify. You see, uh, some hunks of moss. You see a couple feathers from magical creatures. A couple vials of blood. You see a couple vials of different elements. Uh, y'know, like lead and mercury and arsenic and that kind of thing. You see some bandages, different waters labeled from different rivers…

thank you justin for pressing him on his details. and what i'll give travis is this is not a bad list of ephemera for being put on the spot. "some leaves you need to identify" is a bit of a cop out when its the firbolg asking, but i'm willing to be lenient for things that aren't pre-written. i would have included poppy personally, but that's just sort of my go-to "plant i definitely know has been/is used in medicine for a very long time"

oh i thought the healing kits were a little too well balanced, that's just the healer's kit from the game.

>Travis: There are three of them, just so you know.

>Griffin: I mean, it‘s a hos—I don‘t want to steal all of the hospital‘s supplies. Like…

>Travis: Listen, I'm not trying to make you. I didn‘t say, ―And so, do it.‖ I just said, ―Here‘s a statement of fact, there are three of them.‖

that's a fucking weird thing to say.

>Clint: You were ready to—you were gonna burn it down last week! When did you get so conscious about it?!

>Griffin: Well, it‘s… we've done a lot of—to burn it down now would just make the other stuff we've done so far a fucking waste, so…

fucking get his ass clint! cook him!

oh thank fucking god its the adbreak i'm dying over here.

>Travis: Also, uh, so, the next episode is going to be, of course, a regular Adventure Zone: Graduation episode. But then, we‘re gonna have another episode in the second week of MaxFunDrive that‘s gonna be a The The Adventure Zone Zone. So if you have questions, make sure you email those into AdventureZoneCast@gmail.com, and make sure you put TTAZZ in the subject line.

??? did they do a ttazz 10 episodes in? i do remember travis admitting that was around the point he wanted to quit before he bravely decided to double down on making it bad. did this ttazz ever get recorded or did he change his mind? i guess i could check the feed but where would the excitement be in that

>Clint: Yeah, right! Okay! Sneak attack! That is a 12 plus… uh, six. That is 18.

>Travis: Yes, that does hit. We‘ll say that you're aiming for the one on the left. We‘ll call him Lefty.

>Clint: Lefty. 2d6 plus four. Right?

>Travis: Uh—

>Clint: Three… oh, I gotta roll for damage. That‘s an eight plus four! That‘s 12!

>Travis: Uh, before you can even sneak attack, he has already taken damage. Uh, but you do hit him with just kind of a free hit. He stabs, bursts into just a water balloon of ichor. Bursts.

>Clint: Oh.

>Travis: I mean, don‘t feel bad.

>Clint: Well, I didn‘t get to use my sneak attack…

>Travis: Well, y'know… sometimes we all get a little disappointed, and…

>Clint: I have to leave something for the other kids. Okay.

wh......at could travis possibly mean here.

also it appears that clint for most of this episode has been turning away from his mic, presumably to handle dice and his character sheet and such, but it means his voice keeps falling off in a really distracting way, and that's weird, considering he's been a radio professional for longer than i've been alive and also his sons have been professionally recording audio for longer than i've been alive if i were 10 years old. its weird that no one caught this, and its also weird that travis, during the alleged 8 hours he claims to spend editing these episodes, he couldn't be bothered to use normalization or amplify tools on audacity to boost the tails of these clips to keep him audible. i get that that would be an annoying and effort/time intensive process, but genuinely you spend so much time on these episodes for so little its weird you then just breeze past actual audio issues

>Clint: And he‘s pretty beat up?

>Travis: Uh, he‘s looking toasty. He‘s one of the ones that took half damage from the moonbeam.

>Clint: Okay. Then I am going to, uh, do an unarmed strike and head-butt him.

clint said he snuck into the room, i assumed after his sneak attack (or not sneak attack) that the others would pile in before initiative started and get added to the order. instead the imp misses and clint just goes again? this is also the grand tragedy of graduation, clint is doing stuff that in a good campaign might be fun, the "swing from the chandeliers" type of actions travis keeps claiming he wants. but here its just like GODDDDDD JUST ATTACK HIM NORMAL THIS HAS A CHANCE TO NOT KILL HIM NOW AND WE'LL BE STUCK IN THIS EPISODE EVEN LONGER

also one more time i want to outline the enemy distribution in this dungeon:

first encounter: 4 imps (4 attacks, 2 hits)

second encounter: 1 imp (free surprise round)

third encounter: 3 imps (surprise round)

fourth "encounter": 6-8 (fleeing, only OAs for the party)

fifth encounter: 3 imps (asleep, free surprise round)

short rest

sixth encounter: 1 imp (surprise round)

seventh encounter: 1 imp (surprise round, 1 hit, but 1d4 "claw attack" with no poison added)

eighth encounter: 2 imps (somehow both begin below the firbolg's 6 initiative just kidding they rerolled initiative after agreeing they'd maintain their first initiative order, both are below the firbolg's 20)

ninth encounter: 2 imps (half health, surprise round; 1 attack, missed)

they have one more room with the "boss fight" left, but this entire two part dungeon up to this point has had exactly five attacks made by imps. total. three that dealt damage, and one of those with a totally made up hyper-nerfed version of their attack. part of the reason this mission feels so fucking monotonous is because they aren't even doing combat, not really. how can you make tactically fulfilling decisions when every enemy is way below you in the action economy, and you're guaranteed a free hit on them when, thanks to travis deciding to fully ignore their physical resistances, it is basically impossible to not one-shot them. like argo gets +4 to damage which means that even rolling the lowest possible damage he can, he would still be guaranteed to bloody an imp, on his free attack he gets every encounter. to say nothing of the other two that would also theoretically get free attacks, if the extreme overkill of a sneak attacking rogue against a 10hp imp that doesn't get its resistances doesn't do the trick.

to wrap up this combat we're currently in, argo headbutts the remaining imp for 2 damage and travis says that's enough to kill it, despite establishing these are the two imps that got hit for half damage from justin's moonbeam on floor 1, for 11 damage halved. meaning this imp actually should have 4 health and should still be up, but i don't know why i'm demanding this terrible combat lasts longer than it has to, sure, he headbutts the imp to death for 2 damage.

also, ....okay counter: 28

i just looked up the statblock for the chain devil, and oh my god this thing is way too strong for these idiots lmao

travis has already fucked up and buffed this creature too, when the party goes to open the door, the devil somehow senses this and launches twin chain attacks through the door at all three of them arbitrated by a dex save. they deal 11 damage to fitz for failing the save, which is also not how the devil's chain attack works. but also fitz should be grappled now and i sort of doubt that's happening

>Griffin: Um… I'm sorry, what‘s a chain devil?

>Travis: Well, Griffin, imagine a beefy fella, uh, with chains all over their body, and the ability to wield chains as weapons. Uh, and they're devils.

travis "well i tend to uh, talk good" mcelroy everyone. its like i'm there.

>Clint: I'm gonna do a history check, just to see if I can figure out a weak point on the chain devil.

>Griffin: Now, history—you're thinking about like, a famous fable about a chain devil who got like, hit in the left knee with a magic arrow?

>Justin: You had to say his name backwards.

>Griffin: Right.

>Clint: [laughs] Well, I don't know Argo‘s history.

>Griffin: [pause] I doubt this is a history roll.

>Justin: [laughing] Roll it! Let the man roll to see about the history of chain devils!

>Clint: It‘s a two!

>Justin: Okay! [laughs]

>Travis: You don‘t know shit.

this is a fucking weird exchange. i don't disagree with griffin that history isn't the most relevant skill here, but why are he and justin arbitrating this roll, why did travis not speak up and either say the roll is allowed or else suggest a more germane roll. for a guy who loves to hear himself talk as much as travis, its pretty fucking bizarre that the times he should be speaking he decides not to. truly no one is doing it like these guys.

>Travis: Uh, and let‘s roll initiative anew, since this is a new character here.

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1. Argo (22)
2. Fitz (18)
3. Firbolg (18)
4. Chain Devil (??)

>Chain Devil: Ha ha ha! This has all been for nothing, you fools! You might have slain my imps, but now, I will destroy you! Ha ha ha ha haaa!

me when i run a totally pointless dungeon in a totally pointless campaign and then i have the miniboss come out and tell the players its all pointless

clint starts us off by revealing he has two weapon fighting and begins dual wielding rapiers. everyone at the table still hasn't remembered that florence's ability is to add +3 to the attack roll and not the damage, so clint is going to add that to his attack, for a total of 19 damage between the two attacks. CDev is now at 66

>Chain Devil: Ha ha! You don‘t think I can take a couple of stabs from your mortal weapons? Yes, continue to dance for me as you've danced in my machinations for months! Ha ha ha ha!

i get travis is trying to do a red herring situation where it appears they've found the true mastermind, but 1. there's no plot. what machinations are they tying to this guy. 2. its not convincing to just have a guy say this, there needs to be at least some evidence that would indicate he's not just saying stuff. 3. we literally already know this guy isn't the big bad because ian told us his boss has another boss.

>Fitzroy: Uh, for months? What‘s your machinations? Now that you're about to obviously kill us, because you're so big and so beefy and strong, and we are but whelps to you.

>Chain Devil: I have been behind every mysterious thing that has happened to you since you arrived! It is I, your worst nightmare --Terrence, the chain demon! Ha ha ha haaa!

>Griffin: I'm gonna go ahead and pass on doing an insight check on this. ‗Cause I don‘t think that‘s true.

>Travis: That‘s the name that Ian told you, don‘t listen to that dude.

ah, there we go, at even the slightest pushback from his player he immediately collapses the artifice and reassures them that this is in fact a nobody. literally could not even wait for griffin to actually roll. also "every mysterious thing that has happened" lol. lmao. he has to say that because there are no concrete examples because he hasn't done any of this work. i'm sorry i know the other sub hates to pyschoanalyze these men but creatives do put themselves into their work and it has never been more clear how this sentence directly connects to his inability to actually sit with any narrative. every mystery to him is "mysterious things happening" and there cannot be any specificity to it because he has not actually engaged with any narrative.

also no shoutouts in the adbreak for names which means he thought of ian and terry by himself, because.....i guess its funny if demons (devils) have regular human names? are we laughing yet?

>Terrence: What? [laughs] No! It has all been part of my master plan, all building to this… the final showdown! Ha ha ha!

its crazy that travis did this, thought, "this is fire" and then did it again for walter russel in abnimals

>Fitzroy: But why—what is—it‘s a bad plan.

>Terrence: No, it was a good plan!

>Fitzroy: No, okay, your plan was to make us go to school together, and then… some other stuff happened, and then you wanted to kill us in an abandoned hospital? Why is that a—

>Terrence: I don‘t expect you to understand all of the nuance and intricacies of my brilliant plan, but yes.

>Fitzroy: Why, though? Like, why, though?

>Terrence: Just because. Ha ha ha ha ha!

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griffin finally shuts the fuck up and casts chromatic orb for 16 lightning damage. CDev at 50

travis thinks this fight where his creature hasn't managed to do anything yet isn't easy enough so he gives griffin an extra d6 for choosing lightning against a guy wrapped in chains. CDev at 45.

justin casts hold person, travis forgets CDev would get advantage on that saving throw, but its fine because he ties the DC and gives it to CDev.

it should also be noted that CDev does not cast his reaction, unnerving mask at any point so far.

hmm, he just attacked firbolg and deals 11 damage. so either both attacks he's made so far he's rolled the exact same on his dice, or else he's not rolling and opting to use the averaged damage (2d6+4). which is fine. that's in the rules. other DMs can sound off below but its not how i run things because the whole point is the randomness of the dice for me. but also i suppose standardizing damage makes a bit more sense for a boss fight, it would feel bad to roll low on an attack in this situation.

second attack goes out toward fitz and misses.

ah, finally, travis enforces the grapple condition.

oh also travis is once again ignoring the CDev's resistances, argo should have hit for half damage since he's doing all piercing damage

>Clint: Okay. I'm… okay. I'm not supposed to ask if I can do things. Um, Argo turns and uses the 1d10 healing potion, and gives it to the Firbolg.

aw look at clint, reading and internalizing good player tips! wish you were at a better table, brother.

>Clint: He‘s gonna do Cunning Action and hide.

>Travis: Okay. You're going to duck behind one of those tool chests. Uh, and that‘s gonna give you some cover. So, attacks against you are gonna be with disadvantage.

that's. that's not what he said, travis. where is the stealth roll, travis.

>Griffin: Uh, I'm gonna… I'm gonna rage out. I think any time the party gets like, really knocked around, like, it instinctively just activates rage mode

i'm not against flavor for barb rage, i even support really abstracting it because being locked into "angry guy on a hair trigger" as a character personality is not always what you want. i don't know that you needed to justify "me and my friends get hit, so i get mad" though.

wild magic surge, fitzroy manages to glimpse into CDev's mind via a failed wis save. it still does not appear that travis is rolling at advantage, although i guess its possible he is and just isn't declaring it.

fitz reckless attacks for 13. CDev is at 37.

>Griffin: Good. What‘s his blood look like, Travis?

>Travis: Kind of like black ichor.

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oh this is interesting. travis decides that "at the start of your turn" supersedes any attempt to break the grapple, so firbolg takes 6 piercing before he can attempt to escape. i don't know what the RAW ruling is, i've always allowed an attempt to break whatever condition before the damage sets in.

travis decides that breaking a grapple costs movement (griffin affirms) but no action or BA, meaning that justin is then able to cast shillelagh and also attack with it same turn. 8 damage. CDev is at 29.

>Travis: That does hit, yes.

>Justin: Four plus… four, eight damage.

>Travis: Okay.

>Griffin: Can you describe it?

>Travis: [sighs] He bonks him on the head real good.

>Griffin: Okay, but…

>Travis: And kind of stars float around as the chain devil kind of grabs his head and goes, ―Bluhluhluh!‖

>Griffin: [laughs] Okay. In my defense, you literally told us, not a half hour ago, to be more descriptive with our actions.

>Travis: You're right, you're right.

>Griffin: So climb out of my fuckin‘ butt.

like what are we doing here. it is also crazy that travis asked them to do that when the only description he's done of combat for the past 3 hours has been "and then they turn into black ichor"

>Travis: The Firbolg swings into action, swinging his shillelagh, angered about the chains that once entangled him. The blow connects, making a solid, meaty thunk, perhaps even… the cracking of skull? You see the chain devil grasp his head for a moment, disoriented and pained. He takes eight points of damage.

this....is not better. this is just more words, but not any actual additional description. he's instead chosen to add more interior feelings to his player's character? it's fucking weird. i know i can't prove that i'm about to do this off the top since this is a written recap, but trust. here's my attempt at descriptive combat:

with a roar, you burst out of the chains entangling you. grasping your trusty cudgel, you harness your druidic magic to imbue it with the strength of the earth, infusing it with a green glow. whirling the cudgel above your head, you bring it down in a mighty smash on the devil's horned head, sending him reeling backward in pain.

>Travis: Uh, he is going to swing one of those chains over at Argo, hiding behind, so that will be with disadvantage. That‘s good, ‗cause that would‘ve hit you. Uh, 12 plus eight.

cannot emphasize enough that clint declared he wanted to hide, not take cover. 13 damage and grappled.

fitz gets hit with the second attack, 8 damage halved to 4 due to rage.

at this point i'll remind chat again that the chain devil has the reaction ability Unnerving Mask. When a creature the devil can see starts its turn within 30 feet of the devil, the devil can create the illusion that it looks like one of the creature's departed loved ones or bitter enemies. If the creature can see the devil, it must succeed on a DC 14 Wisdom saving throw or be frightened until the end of its turn.

he also has the ability animate chains which allows him to turn chains not being worn into magical constructs that allow him additional attacks. and then it becomes like an actual video game boss fight where you have to decide if you want to try and remove the tentacles and lower their dps or if you can just burst through their health before things get too bad. but that's not here, there are no chains in sight that are not on this guy's body, even though that would be cool.

oh i spoke too soon, there is another chain here, argo kept the chain that was locking the front doors on him. he now is trying to grapple the CDev with it. again, tactically a terrible move, but spiritually, this guy fucking gets how to play tabeltops. its actually kind of a weird thing that's happening here. at first glance it looks like travis really designed this dungeon from the ground up just to fuck with his dad. because the other two are a hybrid caster and a full caster, plus they both have magical weapons. argo is the only one that would be meaningfully disadvantaged by all of the devil's innate physical resistance. and then of course, he brought a chain to a chain fight. and so like had travis actually played RAW here i would have accused him of picking on his dad, but by not picking on his dad but still populating this dungeon the way he did, he's made a bad and boring dungeon.

>Travis: Make an attack roll plus, uh… let‘s see, is Argo proficient in chains? Yes, I'm going to say your life on the seas involved a lot of rope and chain work. Y'know, locking up boxes and chests and crates and whatnot. So I'm gonna say you are proficient in chains. So uh, make an attack roll, plus, uh, your proficiency bonus.

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>Travis: That is a dirty 20! Okay! Uh, you… yeah, you grapple him. You wrap him up real good. Uh, he now needs to escape that in order to make an attack against you.

>Clint: And would that not keep him from grappling others?

>Travis: Well, yeah, I mean, he can't attack you, so he can't grapple until he breaks his hold. Um, up next is Griffin!

listen, grapple is one of the more niche mechanics of 5e so i don't really mind when people do not execute it perfectly, but what is this. i allowed the ranged attack instead of a strength or dex contest, but what do you mean he cannot perform attacks, that is not how that works even a little bit (because grapple is a pretty shitty condition in 5e unfortunately -> guy who knows this after trying to build a wrestler in this game)

griffin deals 14 damage. CDev is at 15.

>Griffin: Jesus, this is—lord of HP, more like!

shut the fuck up dude

justin casts frostbite, travis seemingly does not roll the save with advantage, CDev takes 4. 11 hp.

oh nice, CDev breaks the grapple and then does animate that fucking chain

chain hits argo for 12 and drops him, which i find surprising, but i haven't really been tracking player HP.

wait actually, the animated chain shares its attack with the CDev, that should have been at disadvantage due to the frostbite. cest la vie

>Griffin: Okay. I'm going to try and… sort of position… are—is the second floor like, overlooking the first floor? Like a…

>Travis: Uh, the stairway, yeah. I mean, there‘s an opening that the stairway came up through, but it‘s not like, uh… it‘s not like an open—

>Griffin: It‘s not like a terrace?

>Travis: No.

on one hand, a fucking wild assumption to make about the space, but on the other hand, travis has not described this room at all so.

griffin chooses to drop out of rage for some reason? and then make a dash to argo, taking an OA? they are not sending their best. i get that this is "roleplay" but just considering argo already passed his first death save, you know the CDev is extremely low, why would you try to rush to stabilize argo instead of trying to rush down the CDev? like you have an entire extra round of combat before he's in any danger of actual death, just attack the guy why are we still fucking here.

anyway, the CDev nails a crit on fitz for 18. this is all so he can get to argo and use the medicine kit to stabilize him, which he can do while raging. i thought he was going to cast a spell to finish off the CDev, as that's the one thing he can't do while in rage.

oh actually, to back up a bit, travis has once again chosen the one option that is not possible. either you count animate chains as a full action ability, at which point the chain devil cannot attack, or else you treat it as a bonus action and allow the chain to attack, at which point it is part of the CDev's multiattack, meaning he should have attacked two more times that turn.

either way, here comes the exact reason i was tracking the chain devil's health. fitz is down to 2 because griffin is stupid, and firbolg casts ice knife for 7 damage. eagle eyed readers may remember that the chain devil is currently at 11 health.

>Travis: The ice knife plunges into the chain devil‘s heart. He falls to his knees and says…

>Terrence: Yes! You've defeated me in a worthy battle! Now… my plan is completed, and you don‘t need to worry about it anymore!

>Travis: As you go outside to try to find some help, you are greeted by the mayor‘s assistant, who hands you the bags of gold that you were promised, as well as some gift certificates to Springs Eternal, uh, the tavern here in Last Hope. You get a free meal, and a free drink, and uh, a free trip to their spa. And a free bed for the night. You guys can like, crash out and rest up.

presumably, the mayor's assistant is dressed and looks like exactly what you'd think a mayor's assistant would be dressed and look like. the way he thinks its fine to skip the reward scenes is so interesting to me, because those are all the scenes where you'd build the kind of stuff he keeps saying he's building in this campaign, the poor treatment of sidekicks, the weirdness about school.

>Announcer: This has been a Travis McElroy experience, written by Travis McElroy. Edited by Travis McElroy. Produced by Travis McElroy. Starring, Travis McElroy. With, Clint McElroy. Guest starring, Justin McElroy. And introducing, Griffin McElroy. Catering by Doug‘s Pizza ‗n' Stuff. No real imps were harmed in the making of this podcast. This podcast was not filmed in Georgia.

gave yourself top billing huh? no further questions your honor.

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FUCK ME THERE'S AN AFTER CREDITS SCENE

fitz runs into cuckminster at the only bar in town. i thought the reason these three idiots got the imp job is because everyone else at school has families that love them and they all go home during break.

>Buckminster: Well, I just wanted to tell you, uh… not to worry about the whole thing with Leon. I remember now that he told me he was going to be traveling for a while, so… abso—it‘s nothing. No issue. Don‘t worry about it.

>Griffin: I'm gonna roll an insight check. Just to see… what I can see. Uh, that‘s a flat 17.

>Travis: Um, you see—you can see that he believes it, but you can also see that his eyes seem, uh, just a little less engaged than you would expect about big news like this, and he seems fairly, uh, almost abnormally calm about it.

"abnormally calm" there has literally never been an instance of cuckminster having anything but a quiet measured tone, travis can only ever tell narrative as if he's summarizing episodes of yellowstone.

griffin detects magic and he's under enchantment magic. yay. fucking done. we're done with imp hospital, what travis considers the peak of this campaign. the mission that in any other home game would have been the side quest you spend a day on because the dm is hungover and forgot to prep. these are the blazing heights you need to achieve before taking on a paid panel at NYCC to explain to others how to DM.

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episode 8

and once again, my dark passenger compels me to my grim work

this is episode 9, Mission: Imp Hospital 2 - Unfinished Business and it was published on 3.5.20

Also I know he made the subtitle of this hyphenated because he thought it would look stupid to have double colons. I'm here to say you should do double colons. Its way funnier. I once guested on a podcast where you pitch sequels for movies that don't have them and I came with Super Mario Bros: The Move: 2: Mario is Missing or some such thing.

the episode description for this one reads:

The Thundermen are moving up in the world! Specifically, to the second floor of the imp filled hospital. A new friend is made and a major(?) enemy is defeated.

there's something fascinating going on here, right? because an episode description should primarily be about getting your audience excited for what's going to happen. And he just. says outright that they defeat a big enemy. And I guess the intriguing part is, it appears to be a major enemy but....is it? the victory is certain, but if the victory matters at all is what you'll have to tune in to find out. it's a bold move cotton, let's see how it plays out.

oh we're starting with a maxfun drive ad (currently: just cleared the halfway mark on their goal), of course. it appears to be justin doing an unconscionably grating old man voice, on par with travis's baby voice. this sure is making me want to give him money.

oh god griffin just entered this ad and asked what justin was doing in these "old old eps" is this a fucking dynamic 2026 ad. that's insane. why would you do this.

oh travis heard me this time his fake trailer has an actual explosion sound effect.

also, this:

>Announcer: This March, the imps… are… back.

>[exaggerated monster growl]

>Announcer: And also, so are the Thundermen.

>Griffin: And my hit points… have been better? So I would like to—I would kind of like to chill, if we could.

>Travis: Yeah, you guys could take a short rest. There‘s no reason you gotta do this in one fell swoop.

this exchange gets to the heart of why so many dnd games feel like they're fighting their system to have fun. because despite wotc's attempt at a rebrand, dnd is still at its heart, an attrition dungeon crawler game. everything is geared around doing long dungeon delves that whittle down your resources and the fun comes from the tactical decisions you make to make sure you have enough juice for that dungeon boss down the line. but griffy's hurt so he wants to short rest and replenish his shit.

>Clint: No no no, short rest—let‘s spend a little together time. Let‘s talk to each other, get to know each other.

clint fucking rules

>Travis: Well, I mean—wait, before we do that, it‘s been a couple… well, for us, a couple weeks now. Maybe people are binging this, and it‘s just back to back. Where is everyone at, hit point wise?

you didn't do this entire dungeon in one sitting??? you couldn't manage to find two hours to record???? "maybe people are binging" yeah travis. that's why the numbers are down. people are waiting to binge it.

oh my god griffin is crying because he's at 23/38 fuck off dude.

>Travis: Listen, don‘t just sit there and roll. Tell me what you're doing. I'm painting pictures for you.

>Griffin: Sure sure sure.

>Travis: The least you could do.

oh. i'm often playing up my outrage for a more entertaining recap, but this exchange has me actually, genuinely, angry. i don't- he's not a good person. that is a bad man.

i could be playing the surprisingly good tmnt hades clone or the hundred line - last defense academy, a tactical vn made by i guess the dangan ropa guy and some other visual novel guy. instead, i am here, in hell, with you : )

oof. just saw the runtime for this one.

>Griffin: Could I make a fortune roll to see how tasty it is? I got a nat—I got a nat 20 on the tastiness roll!

>Travis: You love it!

>Griffin: I've never loved anything as much as this in my life! [...]

>Griffin: I yell, alerting every imp in the building…

>Fitzroy: Damn!! This is good jerky!!

we spend a lot of time on travis here at weedshrek industries, but honestly what the fuck is going on with griffin why does he always try to do this shit to himself

>Griffin: It‘s hard for me to get in the space to play when I'm just so fucking impressed at my brother Justin‘s economic study that he has been doing IRL, in order to play this student of economics, IRG. I'm proud of you, Justin.

do you think there's a part deep inside the big dawg that's seething rn because he hasn't been compliment on incorrectly using compounding interest

>Argo: [laughs] Th… thanks, I think? What about your moms? Do you guys have fond memories of your folks?

>Fitzroy: Um, this short rest is turning into a bit of a… a bit of—

>Argo: Oh come on, I'm just curious!

>Firbolg: I did have a mother. She was no different to me than the rest of the clan.

clint is CONSTANTLY pushing for these interpersonal beats between their characters, he has something that's honestly way way more important than grasping the rules, he has a proper player's mindset. its the same sort of deal where usually any task at any given job can be written down and taught as a step-by-step process, but its much harder to teach someone how to assess all tasks at hand and triage effectively and communicate with clients etc. the "soft skill" as business people like to say. anyone can read the player handbook and come away with a decent grasp on the actual rules of dnd, but it is much rarer to have someone who just sort of intuitively engages with the setting and other players in this fashion.

oh also justin once again comes up with something ursula k leguin does much better in the dispossessed, its actually kind of crazy how much the firbolg society is just boneless racist anarres.

>Fitzroy: Oh… You know, uh, the—the house where I grew up, Argo, it‘s um… I don‘t like to flaunt it, but uh… it was large enough that I would go days without seeing either of my parents, and uh, they would frequently sort of travel from villa to villa. Or ‗vi-ya,‘ as they would say it.

say what you want about justin and the decisions he's made with firbolg, and there's a LOT to say in that regard, but at least his little nuggets of worldbuilding are intriguing. like it does make you wonder what a society where (and here i borrow from ms leguin once more) the idea of "ownership" of a child to a parent doesn't exist, and the child "belongs" to the community as a unit. meanwhile fitzroy is richie rich. literally the least interesting take on a rich kid. aw, mommy and daddy emotionally neglected you.

>Justin: Travis has just texted me a picture of his outline, and the weirdest thing is, at the beginning, it says, ―Ten minutes about fish and moms.‖

this is a joke, but it is a joke rooted in the fact that travis just lets these scenes continue forever. get a fucking producer if none of you fucklechucks have the stomach for telling your family its time to move on

travis said the stairs to go up are directly behind the reception desk, and i thought, that's a weird place to put stairs, but i've pulled up the map again, and wouldn't you know it, there they are, directly blocking the entrance to one of the exam rooms. didn't this guy do set design? shouldn't he have......some....understanding of 3d space

>Travis: You reach the top of the stairs. This floor is less decorated than downstairs. It is far less finished. Though, the construction is more or less done, you can tell that the finishing touches haven‘t been put on. There‘s not as many working lanterns, there‘s none of the, y'know, kind of generic art one might see in a hospital… some sort of almost obscure saxophone, where you think, ―I think that‘s a saxophone, but why does it look like that?‖ Um, and you see several toolboxes and containers of building materials lining the walls. And I would like all three of you to make a perception check, please.

ok first of all, let's just get this out of the way: travis forgets the word abstract.

with that out of the way, let's look at the rest of this bullshit. why and how is the upstairs unfinished. you literally said this hospital was having its grand opening tomorrow. if that is the case, then when would the imps have had time to move in, because if your opening is tomorrow and the work isn't done, brother, that's called OT you're on site until the job is finished.

and like just. i'm so sick of these lanterns, man. what about them is magic? that you don't need to refill them? like i know he is stupid and doesn't know this, but refilling lanterns is a relatively easy ask, it seems like it would be way more cost efficient to not pay for the exorbitantly expensive magic. and if this is merely supposed to be him conceiving of electricity but "make it fantasy" then like...........how are they not ready. that is one of the things you have to have done before a building can be considered operational. also, did he forget windows exist? why is there so much emphasis on lanterns when like, obviously even magic lanterns are going to be kind of annoying to work by, you would want a lot of natural light both because sunlight is obviously good for sick people, and also because cross breeze is obviously good for sick people. its like he's resentful people can't just imagine a hospital and he needs to say some stuff, and he's also resentful because he has no idea what goes into building construction. no one is fucking leaving their toolbox on site overnight in an unlocked building. especially one scheduled to open for business in the morning. you are insane.

i will retract that if it ends up being wrong, but i am 99% sure that the reason there's only a map of the first floor is that he's going to just repeat the exact layout upstairs. in which case, this isn't a hospital. there's no real bed space, there's no advanced medicine machinery, there's no surgery theater. there's two doctors and a bunch of exam rooms, this is a clinic.

>Travis: Uh, well, Argo, as you make your way up the stairs, uh, your lantern that you were still carrying from the first floor, uh, just doesn‘t quite shine well enough on the top step, and you're gonna stub your toe and take one damage.

>Griffin: Damn, DM. That‘s fucking savage.

>Travis: Listen, that was a nat one, and I'm not gonna let you guys just nat one left and right with no repercussions. But… um… you—Fitzroy, you see, uh, with your shades of gray vision, you see an imp tentatively peeking from behind one of the tool chests. And you can tell, with your keen, half-elven eyes, that he appears more nervous and nonthreatening than any imp you've seen so far.

actually, fuck this, i'm going to go play video games.

>Griffin: M‘kay. Um… and this [imp's hiding place] is out in the hallway, this tool chest?

>Travis: This is up in kind of the main, uh, floor. The first floor, it was separated, y'know… the second floor, it‘s all rooms along the perimeter of the floor, and the middle is basically wide open.

well first of all if you're going to have a different layout on the next floor (which i do recommend, because that's how buildings actually are), you need to then have a map of the new floorspace, TRAVIS. and second, what.......why is the second floor designed this way. why this big open space. explain to me the function travis. things need to have a reason behind why they're that way travis.

14:20 travis gives this new imp a BIZARRE accent. the previous ones had a growly "demonic" type voice, this guy sounds vaguely like a racist caricature of someone.

>Travis: Oh yeah. He makes his way tentatively over. Uh, still keeps a little distance, but he does take a piece of the jerky, and he yummies down on it. And you can tell he enjoys it.

>Imp: Oh yeah, you know, buddy? Imps don‘t normally eat, but I enjoy this jerk—this is good. You could sell this.

i know its because his imagination is shit, but it bothers me so much how non-committal his descriptions always are. "keeps a little distance" is absolutely nothing. that could be a foot, that could be five feet. and you don't have to give precise measurements, but if the idea, is, eg staying out of range of a surprise attack, say he steps out of arm's reach. that is still a concrete distance that conveys something over this nothingness he provides

also yeah, why would this imp even have the capability to eat or taste

>Imp: Well, I'm a conjured being from, y'know, ichor and kind of nothingness, and so, I don‘t need to eat, I guess I should say. I do eat. Y'know.

this is what i keep saying, its all for the bit, and then travis tries to go back and paper over the inconsistency and its just a terrible way to do things. also what do you mean imps are conjured from ichor. the colloquial usage is basically like cool blood. the actual origins is the literal golden blood of the gods in greek myth. are these imps derived from divine blood? because that's cool as fuck, why does he keep saying buddy and sound like that.

>Fitzroy: Hey, uh, speaking of, where did you come from, necessarily? That may be difficult for you to, uh…

>Imp: Ohh, buddy… oh, buddy. I'd love to tell you, but I'd get in trouble, buddy, if I tell you.

this is confusing because i feel like twice now travis has established that they came from the forest. and i guess griffin may be metagaming because they know as players that demons in the forest is not the status quo, but it feels weird he keeps pounding this drum. actually, its less weird as it is frustrating because travis is going to just keep dodging giving you the answer, just like this, but hope burns eternal i guess

>Imp: Oh, Jerky Boy… ohhh, Jerky Boy. My name is Ian.

>Fitzroy: Ian!

>Ian: It‘s spelled weird. It‘s—it‘s got a lot of weird characters in it, and it‘s very… impish. But it‘s still pronounced Ian.

>Fitzroy: There‘s—[laughs] Okay, traditionally, there‘s only three letters in Ian, so there‘s not much room to hide in there.

>Ian: Oh, buddy, there‘s like, 16 in imp version.

my eyes flash golden as i enter UltraWokeInstinct and proclaim: travis is cancelled for expressing anti-scottish sentiment by mocking how they would spell the scottish name ian

>Ian: Yeahhh. Most of them are kind of like, uh, y'know, ampersands and asterisks and stuff. But it‘s pronounced Ian.

dude just does not know when to shut up. "it looks long and difficult to pronounce but its actually pronounced in a short and easy way" is like. i don't think its an especially fresh or funny joke, but it is definitely a joke. and then he has to keep going and the name is mostly ampersands and asterisks? that sucks. it should be infernal glyphs, not the shit people put in their AIM username. I would also accept spelling a fully different pronounceable word because infernal borrows characters from common but transposes their own pronunciation to them like irish or vietnamese. like if his name is spelled carburetor but its pronounced ian, that's kind of funny. or wait let me workshop this what if infernal names are all different negative traits or insults but they're pronounced like normal names. so his name could be spelled manslaughter and then he's like but its pronounced chuck

anyway.

>Ian: Oh, buddy. See, I used to make trouble. Um, but I don‘t want trouble. I don‘t want trouble. Recently, I've rethought all of my life decisions.

>Fitzroy: Mm-hmm.

>Ian: I saw you guys smash the downstairs boys so good.

>Fitzroy: Yeah, we did. We got ‗em.

>Ian: I don‘t want that trouble. And I'll make you a deal. You let old Ian go, buddy… I no more make trouble, and I'll tell you what you wanna know. We‘ll be buddies. I'll go away. I'll do good things.

this is such an odd exchange because on one hand, it doesn't make any sense, you've clearly demonstrated to us that imps don't fear "death" because of their constructed nature. and on the other hand, this would have been a pretty easy justification because back on floor one, you narrated that griffin firebolt'd that imp so good that some other imps, elsewhere, had a sudden urge to reexamine their life choices and lead more virtuous lives. he could have been one of those imps.

>Griffin: I feel like—here‘s where I'm comin‘ from. It‘s our job to bust all the imps, right? We were hired to treat the symptom. But like… this is—this is a part of a pattern, I feel like, of just weird shit happening around here, what with the holes to other planes of existence, and uh, reports of demons in the woods. So like, if this is tied to that, I just am trying to sort of… piece it together a little bit.

ah, this is why he's been so insistent on finding out where the imps are from. this makes sense to me because "multiple different unrelated planar intrusions are actually all secretly related and orchestrated by some hidden force with a mysterious motive" is just every campaign story griffin has ever penned. there is also something to be said for how generally, yeah, i would think two different planar incidents must have some sort of connection. but that's in a vacuum, in this campaign, run by travis, you are overthinking it my man. although i also don't know what griffin expects to find here? even if this were some grand conspiracy, this is a constructed magical being from the infernal plane, that is the guy who least has any idea about what management is doing.

>Ian: And I trust you. I see kindness in your eyes.

>Fitzroy: Oh yeah, it‘s there.

>Ian: You have kind eyes, Jerky Boy.

>Fitzroy: Thanks. Your eyes have worms in them, kind of?

>Ian: Oh no, that‘s just an illusion, but thank you.

>Firbolg: We must move on.

travis has one improv move and its-

to come back again to my well of "advice can't actually help travis because there's a fundamental disconnect within his entire framework of how he conceives of ttrpgs" this is a great example, because he's actually gotten worse since receiving feedback. like, overwhelmingly, even among people who claim to like grad, one of the early criticisms was how railroaded it was. and so like, "don't railroad your players" is some pretty standard early dm advice, but because there's something wrong with that boy, his takeaway has been, essentially, do not end scenes. like look back (metaphorically do not actually listen to this slop again) at episodes 1-3 and one thing you'll see travis actually do well is cut a scene that's run its course and move on. but he's identified that as what people mean by railroading, and not the way he shuts down most player suggestions and steamrolls their ideas in favor of his own. so he's still doing that, but now we don't even get scene brevity because a scene will keep going until justin gets frustrated enough to demand they move on. there's whole slews of minutes in these last few episodes where travis just stops talking but because there's nothing he's actually given them, it ends up being 10 minutes of describing a melon and his family tries very admirably to make something funny with no props and no direction and no idea when the scene is supposed to end.

>Fitzroy: Where are you from? Where did you come from? What‘s going on?

>Ian: Well… because I trust you, I tell you. I'm going to get in trouble. My boss find out, I'm in trouble. But I tell you. You give me jerky, you nice to me. Um, we were sent here. We were conjured. Sent here. Uh, we was told to distract three idiots. But luckily, you guys came along…

like, i guess this is fine, fitzroy technically does, after asking twice about where you're from, and griffin out of character clarifying he wants to know where the imps are from, after fitzroy asked two other imps where they're from, also say "what's going on" so ignoring what the player is actually curious about and dropping in your prewrite story beat is fine.

although to be perfectly clear, i still do not know what the fuck griffin wants, can travis just say "the infernal plane" and let us move on? i don't know why he keeps ignoring this instead of clarifying he already told them and they all would know anyway, like i don't think its a secret where devils and demons live? this is a weird thing happening from both ends.

>Fitzroy: And who said—who said it? Who said these things?

>Ian: To my boss?

>Fitzroy: Yes.

>Ian: I don't know, my boss‘s boss.

>Fitzroy: Who‘s your boss?

>Ian: Listen, I am just a pawn in game of life, y'know? I don‘t ask questions. Uh, I don‘t make waves, y'know? Just trying to make it to retirement.

this is literally playing to frustrate omg. fine, more than believable that an imp would not know the grand plan or anything beyond his direct mission objective. HE KNOWS THE GUY WHO GAVE HIM THE ORDER AND CREATED HIM THOUGH. HE KNOWS THAT SHIT. STOP DODGING THE FUCKING QUESTION TRAVIS. he makes these problems for himself!!!!! he's too stupid to think of a way to deliver this information other than having a character just show up and say it directly, and he's too stupid to come up with a plausible character to do that with so we have this bullshit. "i'm your friend and i'm totally on board with helping you, and i'm more than willing to tell you what i know about the plan. i'm just gonna ignore that other question because the guy playing me cannot think of a justification for why i wouldn't share that"

also "retirement" he's so fucking annoying dude. he brings out the imp lore to fuck up griffin's attempt to lay a trap, and then as soon as that's done he's thrown it away and now imps can eat food and take naps and retire.

I'M......

no edits, this is what plays out immediately after travis refuses to share the name of the imp's overseer:

>Fitzroy: Okay. Just one last question – if we do find and vanquish your boss, do you just kind of disappear, or… how‘s that work?

>Ian: No. Y'know, I uh… I'm gonna last as long as I stay alive, and I don‘t want to work for boss no more. I'm gonna get into artisanal cheese.

>Fitzroy: Okay.

>Justin: [snorts]

>Ian: That‘s what I've decided. That‘s my new thing.

>Fitzroy: We‘ll—that sounds—

>Ian: I've never done it before, but I just feel in my heart I'll be good at it, y'know?

>Fitzroy: Yeah, I mean, it sounds amazing. I'm gonna hit you up, actually. Let me um… let me get your business card, and we‘ll have ourselves a cheese talk.

>Ian: Um, one more thing, buddy. If you run into Terry – that‘s my boss – don‘t listen to a word that guy say. He a liar.

>Fitzroy: Okay.

https://preview.redd.it/d1b2saof0rzg1.png?width=624&format=png&auto=webp&s=633f88307ac33470cc4e9208f51c0930a9654574

the cool thing about the amogus rant is that it is an insane thing for anyone to say, and viewing that with no context to the man behind it and its already hilarious. but then if you actually see the kind of shit travis does regularly, it is beyond the pale in how deranged it is for this man specifically to ever say any of those words.

also fun fact, jared was my screenwriting 101 professor. he told me to watch breaking bad. it was a weird moment for me when this went viral.

>Travis: Uh, what are you looking for [when you cast detect magic]? What would you like me to describe to you?

>Justin: Magic.

>Travis: Magic? There‘s magic everywhere, my dude.

>Justin: Alright, ICP. No. I mean, like… the—where am I sensing magic from? Any strong magic vibes? This is called detect magic.

>Travis: Does your detect magic break it down into different kinds of magic, or just some magic?

where. point on the shitty map you drew exactly where the magic is you fucking asshole. oh, is it the magic lanterns? the ones you said aren't working on this floor? lest we forget, griffin cast detect magic on the first floor, and got every room the imps are in and where there were potions. also travis doesn't know what detect magic does.

>Travis: Well, the good news is that these rooms are quite smaller than the ones downstairs. These are more like, y'know, individual, sleep on this bed, wait for a doctor to come. They're not quite as large as a admin office or doctor‘s office or even the exam rooms.

>Um, you do sense magic. But the problem is that the, uh, imps have kind of been coming and going so much that you're getting a lot of crossed signals. There‘s definitely some doors where, like, you can feel magic. Think of it this way – if you were in a restaurant, and you tried to smell food, you would definitely smell food stronger from the kitchen.

>Uh, but you would kind of get a foodie smell pretty much in the air. But you can definitely sense that there are some rooms where it‘s stronger than others, and maybe some, uh, trails that are fresher than others.

travis....doesn't know what an exam room is. there are depths to this man's stupidity, because genuinely what are you talking about. like i am not a fucking expert on hospitals but like come on dude, have you never watched scrubs? there's like a hundred medical shows that take place in hospitals airing at any given time in this country. and somehow you've managed to build a clinic instead. ok, its ok, like, you go to those. that's where you're getting an annual usually. i've been to a bunch of clinics recently for my vasectomy. which means i've been in the fucking exam rooms those are the rooms with the beds where you wait for the doctor dude what are you talking about!!!

its genuinely so frustrating to watch him "world build" because his incuriosity means he knows basically nothing about how the actual world functions and his media illiteracy means he's not even copying the tropes of others who understand how the world functions, he's just slapping things together at random and half the time forgets what he said 15 minutes ago. nothing is tethered, its all vapor. a world of fucking smoke. like what the fuck is this idea that imps suddenly leave residue trials of magic? this could be something, right? in the hands of someone who cares this could be because of the imp's constructed nature, they literally leak their essence as they move, eventually unmaking themselves given enough time. this gives us insight into devils. like, we know devils are evil, its in the name, but now we have a concrete example. they create life, but do it with so little care that this creature has no future. days after its "birth" it will die, for no other reason than its easier and faster to whip up a single-task self destructing imp than it is to make a proper construct. and doesn't that sound sort of familiar? cutting corners at the detriment of others to make things slightly more convenient to those in power? devils are also of the law. now you've got the building blocks to portray devils as business bros and ceos. it also even gives some pathos to ian! here's an imp who thinks he's going to retire, run away and make cheese. he has no idea that in another 24 hours he will be magical dust.

but what it means here is you think "why would it be like this up here when it wasn't like this at all downstairs" and "he could have just pointed out the doors where the imps are and describe the magic glow, they still got that information but in a very muddled way that took way too long for no real purpose"

also it should be noted that travis doesn't actually tell them which rooms, he just says they would be able to tell. asshole.

>Travis: Let me ask you guys this. And I say this with all the love and respect as professional storytellers and game players. In the last, uh, two weeks, have you done any research on imps whatsoever? [laughs]

>Griffin: [laughs] No, Travis, because Fitzroy wouldn‘t have.

>Justin: Right.

>Travis: Well, how about… how about, Fitzroy, you give me an arcana check, or anyone can make an arcana check.

oh my fucking god i'm about to mcfreaking lose it. justin opened a door and saw a big spider, closed the door, and he and griffin agree the job does not involve fighting spiders, so travis says this bullshit. why would they look up imps?? why would you expect them to metagame??? oh. stupid question, he expects them to do that because its what he would do. and like, it is so easy to not come across as a stupid asshole here. all you had to do is ask for the arcana check instead of passive aggressively asking why your players don't want to cheat. or better yet, you can just say "and btw, you remember from your studies that imps can turn into spiders"

>Travis: Okay. Fitzroy, you know of imps… you did a little research before coming here. You looked in a tome or two. And you know that imps are magical shape shifters, and—

i know i'm in no position to point this out because of how many fucking words i've wasted on this podcast, but why is he so wordy. "a tome or two" adds no extra texture, it just takes up space. and its always always always "you did research". which is the standard in a regular game of dnd, because you are all adult professional adventurers and part of adventuring is doing research. but these are not adventurers. these are students. MAKE THEM REMEMBER LEARNING IT IN CLASS

>Justin: [laughing] I mean… So, just so—[struggling to speak through laughter] Just to really hammer down the physics of the actions that are about to take place… the Firbolg will open the door. [laughs] The spider will look at the Firbolg. Dad, for some reason, will sneak—will sneakily, from directly in front of the spider, push past the Firbolg, and sneakily attack him?

clint suggests firbolg open the door and then argo will sneak attack, and justin is losing his mind because he can't envision what that could possibly look like, even though, literally right here as he's explaining how he doesn't get it, he describes a perfectly acceptable scenario. the firbolg is like 9 feet tall, you could obviously do a "sneak attack" by hiding behind him out of sight. but also no, don't humor justin's inability to grasp the ludonarrative dissonance, he is a games journalist he fucking understands the difference between mechanics and narrative.

....okay counter: 28

been a minute. good for him.

>Justin: Do we notice anything else in the room?

>Travis: Uh, no. You can see that it is, uh, nearly finished. There‘s a kind of basic cot bed. There‘s some drawers. But uh, they have not been filled yet.

>Justin: Travis, I'm about to close the door to this room for all eternity and relevance for all of existence, for every human being that has ever or will ever live. A simple no will be fine.

>Travis: Fair.

>Griffin: [laughs]

>Clint: [laughs]

>Travis: I'm trying to paint a word picture, Justin!

>Justin: You're painting a word picture that I'm about to throw in the toilet forever and ever!

>Travis: Okay. Fair enough.

justin does NOT want to be here anymore lol. also my understanding is that "fair enough" is what white guys say when they're really hurt

also why is everything so orderly up here. the imps were trashing everything on the first floor.

>Travis: Now, when you get to room three, the door sticks a little bit.

>Justin: I push it harder.

>Travis: Uh, make a dexterity saving throw for me.

>Griffin: Uh oh. All of us, or just—

>Travis: Just the Firbolg.

>Justin: 18.

>Travis: [gasps] You're very lucky!

>Justin: Plus… two.

>Travis: You're able to dodge out of the way, as you can see that imps had kind of piled some building materials against the door. So as you opened the door, it falls outwards, but you are able to dodge out of the way at the last second.

(justin voice) just to really hammer down the physics of this interaction, firbolg *pushes* the door open, and the big pile of "building materials" (what does that mean and why is it in this exam room when the hospital was going to open today) falls outward

and this is once again travis being a goddamn alien because there is a version of this that is an incredibly well seated trope and prank, balancing something above the door that falls when you open it.

>Travis: Room four contains an imp using a model skeleton as a shield. You will be at disadvantage on attacks.

travis, i know you know how shields work in this game. and so what, this single imp has been waiting in this room with a shield....for what reason? also note how every single one of these has been either empty or a single imp lmao. last episode he said six to eight (-2 from OAs) flew up here, on top of however many were originally up here (i think he said four got damaged by moonbeam when they ruled it would pierce both floors?). we're almost halfway through the rooms up here.

>Travis: Well, let‘s—if we‘re not doing a surprise attack, let‘s roll initiative.

>Griffin: Oh. I mean, I am trying to do a surprise attack.

>Justin: Eight—

>Griffin: I think us jumping into the room and…

>Travis: He‘s ready. He heard Argo yell over in room two.

earlier travis called sneak attack surprise attack, and i thought he was just doing it to provide more semantic clarity to the mechanic since justin seemed pretty hung up on the word "sneak", but now travis is combining it with surprise rounds for some reason, and then denying griffin on that basis.

>Justin: Um… I am going to… do… uh, cast Ice Knife.

>Travis: What?!

ah. the moment travis decides to conceive "ice knife, but better" for gray

lol an imp finally gets an attack, so travis completely invents a 1d4 claw attack for it because we are now in royale levels of player protection.

ah, and here we have another classic dnd experience that the mcelroys are about to treat as totally novel and a justification for how clint is stupid and doesn't know how to play. clint attempts the ol' "use create water to drown a creature" trick, which, as always, leads to reading the spell out loud and realizing you can only create water in an open container. i was in an icespire dragon module campaign once. it fell apart before we got to the dragon, but i was a monk and i was fully planning on arguing that a dragon's lungs, if the dragon's mouth is open, constitutes an open container. the trick i've heard from the dm side to discourage this sort of behavior is to let the player know that if you allow this, it means that this is a known application of the spell in this world and everyone else who has this spell will also know this is an option to use against them. i think the dragon is the end of the icespire module though, so i think i still could have gotten away with it.

oh wait, i spoke much too soon, the mcelroys are always going to put their own special brand of stupid on it.

>Justin: You created a cube of water above him, and let‘s just see where it goes from there. Because I think that‘s powerful, and I love the initiative.

so first, it turns out steeplechase was not justin's first attempt at dming, as he's basically co-dming this mission at this point.

second, justin says this and they all immediately, despite having heard the actual text of the spell less than a minute ago, have now forgotten that create water requires an open container.

>Travis: Well, I looked it up, and uh, one gallon of water weighs eight pounds. So this is about 160 pounds. So, I'm—

>Griffin: But—

>Travis: I'm going to make a strength saving check to attempt to stay on my feet.

like its crazy. he looks it up. he knows the weight. 160 pounds being dropped on a 2-4 foot tall creature is not a winning combo. you shouldn't be rolling strength to see if its still on its feet, at best if you're going to allow this, you should be rolling dex to try and get out of the way of an amount of force that will for sure kill this imp

yeah. ok. this is the problem with taking two weeks off in the middle of a dungeon. they've all forgotten that imps have 10 health. why is griffin casting booming blade on a prone imp. like, its a cantrip, its free, its fine, but if you don't just one shot this imp with your +1 maul, the next player can just lightly breathe on it and it will die.

>Travis: Oh yeah. Oh, you see the shit out of everything. You see like, tastes. You see smells. Um, you can tell, this room is untouched. There is no footprints, nothing is out of place, and you can make a pretty confident educated guess that there is not and has never been an imp in this room.

this is in response to a high perception roll justin made, because travis reminded them imps can be invisible so they have to check even if the room is empty. i cannot believe he verbally told them they could figure out which rooms the imps had been in and then did not mechanically tell them which actual rooms those are. anyway, highlighting this because travis has taken perception to mean just things you can see, and also, why would footprints be a clue these fuckers fly. again what i mean about him being unable to keep anything in his head. its all just amorphous blobs titled "enemy" up there.

>Travis: It‘s just another one of like, the kind of uh, hospital rooms. Come here, stay, hang out, we‘ll check on you. Convalescing room. I don't know what they're called. Hospital room.

you don't know what these rooms are called because these rooms don't fucking exist dude

justin is casting a second level moonbeam on two imps, which, like griffin's booming blade, i guess you can do that.

>Travis: Nope! Okay! They both failed, even with magic resistance. They both rolled, uh, dog shit. So they're gonna take full damage.

https://preview.redd.it/6ceubauz1rzg1.png?width=254&format=png&auto=webp&s=825eb0d0404ece7b7721d1676a6e6685c9f52d7c

cont

you got me mr thorne. when you said at 8,000 newpgrading members the maxfun staff would hit the streets and humilate themselves i didn't consider that the singular for staff is the same as the plural so one guy in a sub-1 minute video talking to two definitely strangers technically fulfills the promise. this guy should try to frame his for profit network as a charity or something, i think he could go far

prev

>Travis: Dr. Nox‘s office is sparsely decorated. Their desk is in the center of room, facing a large cabinet. The cabinet is locked.

>Justin: I'm going to, um… pull the cabinet over, so it‘s lying on the front.

>Travis: Okay… Travis: So you're gonna pull it over?

>Justin: Yeah. Pull it over.

>Travis: Okay…

>Justin: So it falls. Is lying on the door.

>Travis: Make a—oh, okay. Make a strength check.

>Justin: Not my strong suit, but uh… 16.

>Travis: Okay. Yeah, you're able to pull it over, and you're able to pull it over with enough strength that it doesn‘t just topple down. You're basically like, laying it down.

>Justin: No, I mean, I wanted it to topple over. ‗Cause if there was a motherfucker in there, I wanted to go ahead and blaze it. That was my thought

fucking crazy assumption from travis on what his player is trying to do here, weird as hell call for a roll, why was any of this left in

and with absolutely zero fanfare or excitement, we head into the ads.

>Travis: A couple announcements this week! First, I had a lot of fun making the dumb, fun intro. The music for that, I found, is by Maurice ―YoungBlaze‖ Clopton. It was perfect for what I needed. Also, a couple names in this episode. Dr. Frazier is named after Calla Frazier, CallaEve on Twitter. And Dr. Nox is named after Victoria Nox, Victoria_Nox on Twitter. So, thank you for contributing your names. And if you would like to maybe have your name for an NPC on The Adventure Zone, all you gotta do is tweet using the hash tag, TheZoneCast. Bonus points if you share links for the show!

oops, no kind and benevolent here, is someone grouchy from the feedback? weird self-congratulations on the intro. do you not have fun with any of the rest of this piece of shit? you should. someone should. or why does this exist.

and listener names are back! its been roughly half the campaign length currently since we've had one of these, and these are for two characters that don't actually appear in the campaign! no one is doing it like etc etc.

also just for fun i decided to look up nox's twitter. she abandoned it in 2023, but by searching thezonecast i can see she tweeted positively about the show about once a month since grad was announced (we love the blazing speed at which this podcast is released), with her last tweet about the adventure zone being from july of 2020 celebrating getting the petals graphic novel. the last thezonecast tweet from frazier is from 2.11.20. do you think she bailed before she heard her name? :(

anyway i also checked in on the current maxfun drive. it is 4.29.26 as i type this and they are at....6,705 of their 16,000 goal. how is your podcast network pretty good i do not think. they're not even going to be able to go out in their "intentionally" shitty sandwich boards :( another expense out of jesse thorne's pocket because you all hate women and trans people. kamala harris would be president if you had just donated. - joint statement from jesse thorne and nancy pelosi

i watched the malcom in the middle revival yesterday. its very solid. bryan cranston has only gotten better he's so fucking good in this. but it was funny and it was a delight to revisit all these characters and i'm kind of glad it doesn't overstay its welcome (it was originally a feature that got split, so its four episodes long). i think the public interest is there for a full on revival if they want it, but i know its taken them (and by them i mean bryan cranston, who has apparently been pushing for this revival for years) this long to make this because the show creator isn't interested in revisiting these characters for the sake of revisiting them, if he doesn't think there's a story worth telling, he's not going to agree to make more until there is. which i respect, but also come onnnnn we all love bryan cranston as hal. let him be hal.

back from the ads with this:

>Fitzroy: Now, fam, listen. I think we need to come up with a scenario that is gonna sort of bring the imps to us. And then, we kill all of them at once. Right? I don‘t—

>Firbolg: We could‘ve cleared out another room while this discussion took place.

>Fitzroy: I'm just saying, exterminators don‘t go looking for one bug at a time, right? They lay down a trap, and then they let the trap do the work. Let‘s do a trap! Let‘s do a proper trap!

trying to aggro every imp in this building at once is a bad idea you guys almost got tpk fighting four of them. but a trap could be viable. like you have a druid with moonbeam you make a choke point and you're gonna party. oh silly me i for one moment thought we were playing dnd, i take it back none of this applies to travis tea time

they want to know what would draw in the imps, they aren't sure what skill to roll.

>Travis: Make a check based on what you are strong at, and I will answer it in those terms.

god i've almost fallen for travis's trap (getting so brain damaged by this podcast regular things normal people do that travis sometimes stumbles into begin to look impressive). i was going to compliment him on the idea of framing the information differently based on what kind of check it is, but that's literally just baseline dming. also you can allow multiple types of skill checks to resolve an info gathering moment but you need to tell them which skills apply here and let them choose, do not say "just pick the one you're best at" that's terrible

>Travis: Um, so with an arcana check, um, and a 14, you know that, uh, imps are like, demonic constructs. They don‘t really hunger for things. They're not creatures. They don‘t feed. They are built to serve, y'know, some kind of demonic lord, or uh, in those terms, but they're not really like, creatures with, um, hungers or desires in that way.

this is also not framing it through the specific skill. like what would he have said differently here for a nature check? once again, this should have been delivered when they were trying to interrogate the imp. if fitz knows this information, then he looks tremendously stupid for not recalling that when trying to intimidate an imp. i will acknowledge it here once that dnd makes a concrete split between the term devil and demon, with them serving law and chaos respectively. it is actually like perfect for the theme travis wants to make his show about but i can't really ding him for not adhering to dnd lore when he's doing a homebrew setting. but yes, i did note that he says a demonic lord and not a devil here.

the fact that they do serve the bidding of a lower power could be interesting, it means that they are not here just doing random destruction, their actions are specific and geared at accomplishing something. or would if travis mcelroy had ever grasped a narrative before. i won't hold my breath for this payoff.

>Griffin: I cast Disguise Self on myself. This is a new spell. And it‘s a level one spell, so I do need to roll to see if… ooh.

>Argo: Where—where are you gettin‘ all these spells?!

>Griffin: From leveling up as a sorcerer. Uh, I—

>Travis: I think that was in character, not…

>Griffin: Oh, right.

>Travis: Not Dad being confused.

in the interest of fair and even coverage, i have to include this moment where travis actually stands up for his dad.

griffin casts disguise self to appear as some sort of demonic overseer and acts like he caught the trespassers and summons all the imps to see. clint wants to help sell the bit with a deception roll, and travis decides he will allow that if the firbolg also makes a roll. so they back off the plan because the firbolg won't lie. sorry, did i say won't?

>Justin: Not ‗doesn‘t want to do,‘ my friend. Like…

>Clint: He has no deception.

>Justin: Incapable. [laughs] Will not be able to. I am just standing perfectly still, in the most neutral position possible.

i won't put this completely on justin because i've pulled what is almost definitely the wiki page he read as "research" (aka the first result on google for firbolg) and it states: They were extremely honest and could not lie without feeling physical discomfort, even if the lie was by omission.

and like, i think you could read this as they have such a strong cultural aversion to deception that they experience a physical reaction, kind of like those people who are so racist they give themselves msg allergies. but of course, justin reads it as them being somehow biologically incapable of deceit, probably because he got bored and stopped reading halfway through the sentence.

what ensues is an honestly pretty funny bit. i mean, its a classic player has to continue to lie and keeps just saying shit style bit, but that's a classic for a reason. but it should really be noted this exists because travis once again is just saying no. this is off a 22 deception btw

they finally come close enough so griffin casts thunderwave. like it seems to me that if you had just taken a second to talk to your party instead of just doing a plan with no input from anyone else (mcelroy special) then you could have come to the conclusion that justin also has an AOE spell that can actually be targeted so that the rest of the party doesn't take damage. oh who am i kidding justin doesn't know what spells he has.

anyways bad news, travis remembered that imps get advantage on magic saves. too bad he forgot that they also are resistant to any physical attacks that aren't silvered. not that it super matters, because travis did let griffin get a +1 enchanted maul for basically free.

travis sounds so bored lmao

>Travis: Okay, well, he only had four points of life left, so um… you skewer him in such that his grandfather feels it. Like, way off in the distance. His imp granddaddy feels it and is like, ―Ooh, my arthritis is acting up!‖ But actually, it‘s how hard you have just skewered his grandson. And he melts into black ichor.

i think travis would have made a great pua because even though this is just wholly complimentary description, something about the way he says "well he only had four hit points of life left" makes it sound like clint did something wrong for using his completely resource-less ability sneak attack

griffin gets a nat20 on firebolt and travis decides he would rather do another riff on his already not funny "overkill" description, instead of checking the statblock and seeing imps are immune to fire

>Griffin: Um, I'm going to try and detect, like… conjuration magic, I think, right? ‗Cause imps are sort of conjured constructs. So… either that, or transmutation, because they're like, changing forms. But I feel like it‘s one in the same.

why is griffin addicted to nerfing himself? you don't have to specify which school of magic you are detecting. you just see if there's magic.

>Argo: Ahh. Aww, thank you, my friend! I feel great! Can you do that for yourself?

>Firbolg: I could. But in public, is embarrassing.

>Argo: Oh. Public healing?

>Firbolg: This is—this is a joke. Self-healing is permissible and beautiful.

justin: firbolgs are biologically incapable of any form of lie

https://preview.redd.it/qa35qr2wddyg1.png?width=658&format=png&auto=webp&s=00e7cca5df64567ffd240ac8cbdb97dd1d5afb8e

justin: UNLESS I HAVE A BIT

i think i kind of just figured out why its so exhausting to listen to these guys now. they will, every time, choose a bit over consistent character work or world building. and that wouldn't really be a problem except they keep trying to present themselves as serious storytellers. its also an issue because at this point every other actual play that wants to be funny is skilled enough to make jokes that are in character and don't contradict established traits or features of the world. like i skipped a bunch, but even in the "you stab him so hard his grandpa felt it" with the imp that's a joke that doesn't make sense in-universe because you established imps are constructed, he doesn't have a grandpa.

>Fitzroy: Um, I got a little bit of poison… on a cut. But I think it‘s nothin‘ a good nap won't fix.

>Firbolg: Yes. I would love to help you. Let me just try to remember if you shocked me with lightning recently.

you ever get just little flashes of what could have been?

i....i guess in justin's "defense" he has only ever played casters, but him learning in real time that clint adds his dex modifier because he's using a dex based weapon is....

anyway. despite the 22 to draw out all the imps on this floor, griffin only managed to draw out about a third of the imps, because travis narrates six more birds bursting out of one of the rooms they hadn't checked, but they all flee upstairs, giving free OAs. travis still hasn't realized imps are resistant to physical dmg btw

>Travis: So, at this point, you have cleared out the main entryway. Admin one, admin two. Dr. Nox‘s office, exam room one, exam room three, um, and you… get, uh… there‘s some more conjuration magic from Dr. Frazier‘s office, and you didn‘t get any from exam room two, and you got some healing magic from Dr. Nox‘s office. And that‘s all of floor one. So, you can surmise that, most likely, the only room still containing any imps on the first floor is Dr. Frazier‘s office.

yeah a big problem with "hunt and destroy" mission objectives, and also probably the very reason travis decided to do one, is that you need to 100% the map. so here we go, despite multiple instances of loud combat happening in the lobby, there are still more imps waiting patiently in an adjoining room for you to discover them. yippee.

>Travis: Now, when you open the door to Dr. Frazier‘s office, unlike Dr. Nox‘s office, you would guess that, at some point in the past, you would‘ve described this room as lavishly decorated. But now, you're more likely to say ‗completely wrecked.‘ The painting of Dr. Frazier that hangs behind her desk has been drawn on; at least, you assume that the charcoal horns, glasses, and buck teeth were not originally part of the artist‘s vision.

>Various statues and potted plants have been smashed on the ground, and three imps are sleeping amongst the wreckage. Now, you get an opportunity attack, but I will tell all of you, because I am a kind and benevolent DM… if you try to sneak up to them, you are going to have to make a stealth roll, and it‘s going to be with disadvantage, because of all the broken pottery and stuff on the ground.

another classic travis description. "you'd call it lavishly decorated" you know. just imagine what you think lavish means, and its that. lazy asshole. and here he goes again with his stupid dm shtick. why would you say that up front? why would you give that away?

>Justin: I cast Moonbeam on them, in a cylinder that will catch all of them in this cylinder. They need to roll a constitution saving throw.

>Travis: Okay. Uh… okay, that one‘s got a fail. That one‘s gonna fail. That one succeeds. So, one of them succeeds, and the other two fail.

time to play along at home, chat. do you think

a. travis asked for what the DC for this con save should be and then edited it out

b. travis knows justin's spellcasting DC off the top of his head and managed to fail two of three rolls while rolling with advantage or

c. travis did not roll anything and is just arbitrarily turning this from a 3 imp fight to a 1 imp fight because he's very scared of attacking his players again because he's bad at combat balance

there has not been a single attack made by an enemy since the first encounter btw

>Travis: Well, but they are shape changers, which means, in that case, all three of them would‘ve failed. Um, because the advantage and disadvantage would‘ve cancelled out. And so, they all three get hit by 11 damage, and they are all three blasted into puddles of black ichor.

well the narrative they're sticking to is that travis rolled all three with advantage initially, failed two, and then after learning it would be 11 damage for failed saves and that shapechangers have disadvantage, they wipe this encounter before anyone can even roll an initiative. good thing those imps are such heavy sleepers. really lucky that magical demonic constructs that don't need to eat or have any desires do love a nap.

>Travis: Now, listen, I have to ask you. Only because our listeners at home are gonna ask. You're not even gonna go check out the healing stuff?

yeah i'm fucking sure travis. the listeners at home.

i was imagining like a filing cabinet because all travis says is its a cabinet, fucking master of description. it is instead i guess more like an armoire, its filled with medicinal herbs and stuff. now i'm just a poor country recapper who happens to work in a medicine adjacent field, but usually storage cabinets have glass so you can see what's inside

>Travis: Yeah! You get that back off without any additional damage to what‘s inside. Now, a lot of it is broken, mind you. But you find, um, one healing potion still intact, which is a 1d10 healing potion. Um, and you also see various, uh, different, like, ingredients and components for, uh, medicine. Y'know, herbs. Salves.

>Griffin: Nice, dude.

>Travis: There‘s some, uh, y'know, metals. That kind of thing.

>Griffin: Okay.

>Travis: Some flakes of stuff. And you also find… uh, well, a lot of the vials are broken. But you do find one potion of poison resistance.

one, how is he like so incapable of shutting up, twice griffin thinks he's done and then he just keeps on blathering. and two, boooo fucking coward if your players fuck up the cabinet you should destroy the shit in the cabinet. i know there was only ever a health potion and a poison resistance potion in there and you gave them both

LMAO my podcatcher fucking seized and self deleted the episode off my phone before i could finish, oh well those last two minutes are lost to time sorry byeeeeeeee

https://preview.redd.it/dsb7ldkh7dyg1.png?width=937&format=png&auto=webp&s=4c95a47878d08f915277fcc71703f190169c302b

episode 7

fuck my cringe stupid baka life i had to take a week off recapping and now i'm out of buffer i literally finished recapping this episode yesterday

its recap time babyyyyyy and we're here: episode 8, the legendary Mission: Imp Hospital

this was published on 2.20.20, which is significant because i would rate travis 20 spots behind his brothers

episode description:

It's the semester break and the Thundermen are getting paid to do a little exterminating. Birds and rats and imps, OH MY!

and in an act of serendipity, this episode appears to open up the maxfun drive of 2020, and i am recapping it as the maxfun drive gears up in 2026. wow, shifted down two months huh?

in lieu of a previously on to remind the listeners of all the cool and exciting things that didn't happen last episode or ever, we get a fake trailer for this mission. it sounds like the deep voiced announcer pastiche is being done by justin, because travis has no range.

so a couple of things here:

the fake trailer is about as funny as any parody trailer that employs the deep voice announcer. which is to say. not very.

none of the stuff in this trailer is a callback to the actual campaign or this mission. he seems to be trying to do a bit of a classic Bond thing, which is confusing, because that's not what the title is parodying.

whatever the fuck this is:

>Announcer: And fate is in the hands of an unseen, but still incredibly handsome, higher power…

the trailer music is ass

also whatever the fuck this is:

>Announcer: This February, thank Travis for Travis Studios, in conjunction with Thunderman LLC, presents…

he then, despite poorly employing folley at every other opportunity in this campaign, makes the creative choice to create the explosion sounds with his mouth instead of finding an explosion effect. i genuinely cannot tell if this is supposed to be some sort of gag. i sort of feel like its one of those classic schrodinger's gag, where its actually very serious and cool, unless you think its stupid in which case actually it was a joke the whole time its intentionally bad you idiot.

>Travis: My boys… oh, my boys. So excited for this episode. This is our, uh, semester break episode. And it‘s gonna be some D&D-ass D&D.

we the recapper with future knowledge know this is going to be the one and only dungeon he actually runs in this campaign, i cannot wait to see how this plays out

this is the most energy any of them have had since episode 1, i actually have not put it on 1.5x speed yet because they're talking at a regular pace instead of sounding like they're on the verge of falling asleep

>Travis: Okay. So, first thing‘s first, though. Let‘s get some D&D mechanics out of the way! It‘s level up time!

god DAMMIT

griffin chooses to multiclass this episode into wild magic sorc, which i guess is fine but feels sort of overlap-y to me. i guess its for the hashtag narrative.

oh the reason griffin is so amped is because he's picked a class that has an associated random roll table. that boy loves a random roll table i tell you hwhat

oh also they are leveling from 3 to 4 now, despite getting double levels for....going to class off screen earlier.

justin says he got "a couple of dexterity points" which is odd both in the sense that he acts like its stupid, but brother, you chose to take the attribute increase over a feat. its also weird because why are you dumping points into your dex as a caster.

>Griffin: Y'know what, you get a lot more fun stuff at five. I wish Travis had let us go to five.

>Justin: Well, we‘re at four.

>Griffin: Yeah.

>Travis: Well, I tried to go to five, but I don‘t want you guys to be all powerful, big, meaty tanks.

is travis stupid.

clint takes points in INT because he's identified that its a stat none of them have good modifiers in. its a bad move but its a good motivation for it.

>Travis: Oh god. No, none of that. So! Word got around that you all didn‘t have plans for the break. So, when school counselor, Tomas, found out that the mayor of Last Hope was looking for some intrepid and expendable adventurers for a mission, he recommended you.

>Last Hope has been building a brand new, state of the art hospital. However, shortly before the grand opening, it was overrun by imps. No one is quite sure where they came from, but they all arrived overnight. The workers are, by Heroic Oversight Guild guidelines, not permitted to perform tasks like monster raids. However, there are no licensed heroes or villains in the vicinity.

>You three have received special dispensation to work as contractors associated with the school. Your job is simple. Get in there and clean them out so construction can get back on schedule. In return, you will each earn 100 gold that you get to keep. So, welcome to Mission: Imp Hospital.

i truly don't usually engage with media where i feel compelled to go line by line to point out all the ways everything that was just said is bullshit, but call that the travis special

So! Word got around that you all didn‘t have plans for the break.

w....hat are you talking about.

So, when school counselor, Tomas, found out that the mayor of Last Hope was looking for some intrepid and expendable adventurers for a mission, he recommended you.

i'm sorry but the closer you look at travis's works, the more it is incredibly apparent that he's, at best "socially liberal and fiscally conservative" but definitely smells libertarian. there's absolutely no reason why this would be a government contract, why is it going through the mayor. well, once again with future sight, we know the "point" of this campaign is that the current system is bad and filled with bureaucracy. so of course big government is responsible for hiring contract work instead of the hard working intellectual capitalist. I'll give him, "intrepid and expendable" is low hanging but its the kind of joke that always tickles me. this also isn't freelance work if the school is the one brokering the contract. that's just regular work for them then.

The workers are, by Heroic Oversight Guild guidelines, not permitted to perform tasks like monster raids. However, there are no licensed heroes or villains in the vicinity.

WHAT**.** why would construction workers be beholden to the policies of the WWE. I guess this sort of answers my earlier question of "is this the only form of entertainment in the world because its so wildly entertaining no one wants to see anything else, or does the government shut down other forms of entertainment". this is actually an interesting conundrum for me. because this is actually good world building, when we keep in mind ultimately the point is that everything is over-bureaucratized and the HOG is evil or whatever. like it makes sense that this organization is making life harder due to arbitrary rulings that seem more about protecting their monopoly than getting things done. but i know travis didn't think of any of that. i know this is, at best, wild flailing that accidentally hit the mark. but he is also so goddamn stupid because the next sentence implies that not a single teacher at this school has a valid accreditation, despite the fact that very early on he made sure to note that former performers who lose their license are called evil. its also like, THE PLAYERS ARE ALSO NOT LICENSED, IF THAT IS THE ISSUE THEN THEY ARE STILL BREAKING HOG REGULATION AND ITS MUCH MORE IMPORTANT THEY DON'T DO THAT BECAUSE THEY'RE ACTIVELY TRYING TO GET LICENSED BY THE HOG. i don't know if i ever said this, but one time i did run a short campaign where i tried to make his stupid premise work, and i did it by changing it from heroes and villains to being basically a twitch streamer academy, so you'd do all the normal sort of adventuring dungeons, but you're actually entertaining the masses because they're watching you from home on their crystal balls or whatever.

You three have received special dispensation to work as contractors associated with the school.

oh ok so the over-bureaucratized system can get special dispensation pushed out in a day for this one. ok sure.

In return, you will each earn 100 gold that you get to keep.

this exact same mission, but in a mine, cost 1500 gold btw. and you'd think an emergency task that requires special dispensation from the top management would cost more to complete. i've helped manage some service contracts in the actual real world for large businesses, and if everything goes smoothly and you have an MSA in place, its still probably taking a couple days (and this is with, you know, instant communication via email, something the people of nua do not have, these contracts would have to be manually couriered). if you're dealing with a special case that needs high level approval, you're likely looking at getting Legal involved, and once Legal is involved reviewing a contract, your time to complete is going to triple, easily. and that's if there's nothing wrong with the first draft of the contract. not to mention this is now a GOVERNMENT contract which usually has extra security and vetting surrounding clearance. spring break would be fucking over before these clowns are cleared to work.

>Travis: And in case you all were wondering, the title came first.

>Griffin: Right, I'm sure it did.

>Justin: Yeah. This is unsurprising.

>Griffin: And then, that the things we buy with the 100 gold aren't, then, sort of taken away from us… by…

>Travis: As this is not a school mission, you are independent contractors at this point, working under the license of the school, you get to keep it. Your own—

>Griffin: Well, it‘s a co-branded effort with Thunderman Incorporated. Travis: Yes. Thunderman, in conjunction with Hieronymous Wiggenstaff‘s School for Heroism and Villainy…

>Griffin: … presents, a Thunderman LLC joint…

>Travis: Mission: Imp Hospital.

>Griffin: Mission: Imp Hospital.

genuinely you've fucked up so badly if your player ever says this to you. also the thing travis is describing is a subcontractor. he's so goddamn stupid. also i'm including how griffin basically came up with the bit that he rips off to turn into the intro but then also keeps this bit where he thinks of it in the recording.

>Travis: Now, as you approach the front of the new hospital, you see that the handles of the double doors have been chained to prevent any hapless passerby from entering and being attacked. Now, luckily, you have been given a skeleton key to unlock the chain and any doors that you encounter in the hospital. And on either side of the doors are beautiful, stained glass windows.

https://preview.redd.it/ir97peq89dyg1.png?width=500&format=png&auto=webp&s=f406bb949eef3394696d7995ea2117fac1c7ffa5

MASTER KEY. YOU HAVE BEEN GIVEN A MASTER KEY. BUT ALSO WHY WOULD A HOSPITAL MASTER KEY WORK ON THE CHAIN AROUND THE DOORS. WHY WOULD ANY OF THE DOORS BE LOCKED IN AN ACTIVE CONSTRUCTION JOB. WHY WOULD YOU GIVE THEM A KEY IF THEY HAVE A ROGUE IN THEIR PARTY.

zero description of what the stained glass actually portrays lol. again a very easy spot to add texture, give some insight into the cosmology of the world with what kind of gods do the healers venerate. what are the symbols associated with medicine. i mean in real actual life we associate a twin-headed snake staff with medicine this shit is cool. but that would require actually having a cosmology or caring about any of the bullshit that comes out of his own mouth.

whew, travis just mentioned he emailed them all maps of the hospital, and i know at one point those were publicly available, so i was going to try and find them and insert them here, but i just caught that the first stretch goal from the mcelroys for mfd is set at 3,000 new subs and involves travis recapping yellowstone season 2. how is your podcast network jesse thorne pretty good it doesn't seem.

ok found the map

https://preview.redd.it/svsx8psb9dyg1.png?width=1720&format=png&auto=webp&s=58f15f7e9b2ab49dc77d68c451d29dc43076e79f

travis says its two floors but this appears to be the only map they released.

sidebar, while looking for this i also found the mcelroys have a list of game systems they've played on taz, and they attribute a bunch of systems, like FATE, motw, and bitd, to the publishing company instead of the individual creators. its probably fine but i'd be annoyed if i created a system and then credit went to my publisher. you like fantasy? try reading eye of the world, by TOR books.

>Griffin: I think it might make sense for us to… I don't know if this is Griffin saying this or Fitzroy saying this. I think it would make sense for us to like, lock it from the inside, just so, like—they went to some length to keep these things in here. It makes sense to me for us to also keep them in here while we do our nasty stuff to them.

griffin brings up a great point in that, in an analogous real life situation, you'd be dealing with some form of pest infestation. those, you are not worried about containing, because the whole point is you need them to exit the premise. but here, presumably imps pose a physical threat to people, so you would need to not only clear them out so that work can proceed, but also prevent them from entering town (hey where is this hospital in relation to the rest of last hope?) and causing more havoc. except that travis narrated two big stained glass windows right at the front, because obviously the point of the chain is the keep people from entering and fucking with the imps and getting themselves killed, not containing the imps. is griffin stupid. a better, more bisexual dm, would have also considered this and come up with a reason why the imps are happy to just squat in this building instead of terrorizing the town. here, i'll do something right now, off the top of my head: imps travel to the material plane to breed. they find an empty area near civilization and begin to build a massive nest. once the nest is completed, they swarm the nearby town, in what might politely be called a "blood orgy" as part of their infernal mating ritual to bring more desecrated souls into the infernal plane, thus reproducing.

>Travis: As you make your way in, you find yourself in a vestibule lined with benches. Light from the stained glass windows illuminates the white, marble floors. Beyond that, there‘s little visibility for those with normal vision. You hear the occasional skitter of claws on tile, and flap of wings, but you cannot easily identify the source.

just absolutely sauceless prose. like, its adequate, and i wouldn't blink twice if this had been impromptu, but this is a pre-written prepared statement, and you couldn't add an ounce of atmosphere?

The hospital doors swing silently open at the gentlest push. You find yourself in an airy vestibule lined with a dozen simple oak benches painted white. Light floods through the stained glass windows behind you, playing a kaleidoscope of color across the white marble floor. You can easily imagine how this could be an open, welcoming space in a different context. However, empty and silent as it is, with the air thick with dust, it instead feels forlorn, and a little sinister. The light from the windows does not reach much further into the hospital, and the gloom gathers beyond like a waiting predator. There is the occasional skitter of claws, and the flap of wings, but the acoustics of the space make it impossible to pinpoint the source.

>Griffin: Did we get any sort of briefing on like, where these imps came from, or where these imps could have possibly come from?

>Travis: Um, well, that is a good question. Why don‘t you roll an insight check?

>Griffin: Uh, I got a 19… plus zero!

>Travis: Firbolg, did you share the information about the demons in the forest with your compatriots?

>Justin: Sorry, what information was that?

>Travis: You received the information from Breeze Through the Willows, that there were demons in the forest.

>Justin: Yeah! I definitely—there‘s not a lot to discuss around this place. I definitely would have. We've had a lot of free time.

>Travis: Okay. So uh, Fitzroy, you, uh, use your insight to deduce that, probably, it has something to do with that. Last Hope is, y'know, not too far from the forest. The Unknown Forest, you can see some, y'know, little demon fiend-like creatures making their way here. And, as this building was sitting, uh, unused and open, it would be pretty easy for them to squat here and kind of make a little nest.

playing all the hits in this exchange. griffin cannot remember what travis said literally eight minutes ago that no one knows why or how the imps got here. i actually like what travis does here, which is instead of just repeating his mission briefing text, he takes a roll to provide further information based on connecting contextual info they already have (i'll get to the actual info in a minute, which was bad). but then justin knocks it out of the park by fully forgetting about the demons in the forest, and then passive aggressively saying "yeah i shared that, there's nothing else going on we have a ton of free time"

Last Hope is, y'know, not too far from the forest.

WHY DOES THIS TOWN EXIST

The Unknown Forest, you can see some, y'know, little demon fiend-like creatures making their way here.

YOU HAVE ESTABLISHED THE FOREST AS THE MOST DANGEROUS PLACE ON EARTH. YOU HAVE A BARTENDER THAT IS ACTIVELY HOSTILE TO THE SCHOOL BECAUSE SHE THINKS ITS SHADY THEY SET UP IN SUCH CLOSE PROXIMITY TO SUCH A DANGEROUS PLACE. NOW YOU ARE SAYING THIS TOWN IS ALSO CLOSE ENOUGH THAT CREATURES JUST SOMETIMES WANDER OUT OF IT AND ATTACK. FOR THAT MATTER, ISN'T THE FIRBOLG FROM THIS FOREST? WHAT OTHER FOREST COULD HE WALK THROUGH CONTINUOUSLY FOR 13 DAYS AND ONLY COME ACROSS THE SCHOOL AND NOTHING ELSE? IF THIS DEMONIC PRESENCE IN THE FOREST IS NOW, SHOULDN'T HE BE CONCERNED? I AM NOT GOING TO GET INTO THE COLONIAL STENCH "MOST DANGEROUS PLACE ON EARTH" THAT APPEARS TO BE FULL OF SENTIENT CIVILIZATIONS LIKE THE PEGASUS AND THE FIRBOLG HAS.

And, as this building was sitting, uh, unused and open, it would be pretty easy for them to squat here and kind of make a little nest.

so like, what, a full horde of imps moved in during the 6 hours the construction crew was not on site? is the building done? why was it open and empty then? they put a chain lock on it only AFTER imps moved in, despite the town bordering the unknown forest (well, technically it borders the regular forest that borders the unknown forest because travis is an idiot) "the name came first" yeah no fucking shit dude we can all tell.

>Fitzroy: Let‘s keep it frosty. Let‘s stay in… our… what we've practiced. You remember? In our formations? This will be, um… this will be stealth lion… alpha. Do you all remember, from the playbook?

fitzroy really was just a dry run for navy seal huh

>Argo: Has that been you that whole time, playin‘ the little tricks with Argo‘s mustache? You're not the disappearing cat, right?

>Firbolg: This that you say is racist.

hey while this sub may have given you a pass for the f-slur i am definitely revoking your ability to make this joke while you play the most racist character in the adventure zone

>Travis: Okay. With your shades of gray vision, and the Firbolg‘s now cat- like eyes, um, you see up in the rafters, um… you see some, uh, bird shapes to you, Fitzroy, and… to you, Firbolg, birds. Um, you also see, in the shadowy corners, some furry movement, which you assume to be some kind of like, rats.

>Fitzroy: This is a very dirty hospital.

ok chat, what is the joke here, regarding fitzroy and firbolg's perceptions.

griffin also brings up a great point about how dirty this hospital (which i guess has exposed rafters something you should maybe have mentioned) is. and like i don't know a ton about the medical standards of medieval europe (someone should make some sort of podcast that covers medical history), but while germ theory is like another 400 years off, i sort of suspect they were aware that rats are not good things for your health. this is all beside the point, because we are not in medieval europe we are in a fantasy world where travis has provided a map that is laid out like a modern clinic with admin offices so you can understand why its jarring to suddenly be told there are rafters covered in rats

>Travis: As you move into the main chamber of the first floor, you are facing the semi-circular reception desk. Directly behind the desk is a large stairway, leading to the second floor. In the four corners of the room, you see sets of chairs, as well as tables covered with magazines. You imagine that these magazines must be as new as the building, but they have clearly been clawed at and chewed on.

>Along the walls are doors. A quick check of the blueprints you were given to serve as a map shows you that these doors lead to admin offices, doctors‘ personal offices, and exam rooms. The skittering and flapping noises grow increasingly louder from the rats and the birds.

see this is what i mean, a curved reception desk is like the most modern thing you could place in a space, and it creates specific expectations on what this place looks like, but then he throws in all this incongruous stuff, but in piecemeal, so instead of like, potentially a cool aesthetic that blends modern aesthetics with medieval building techniques or something all you get is a really disjointed image because your brain has to keep rewriting what the space looks like because new out of place details keep getting added in.

and what do you MEAN there are magazines on the tables. you can't actually be this stupid, can you? at the point you are laying out magazines, the construction crew has closed the job and the building is open for business. magazines are like the last thing you're going to be placing in a space what the fuck. and yeah, i guess the fucking imp infested hospital is also full of rats and birds the imps i guess do not kill and eat, because of course the rustling is from animals and not the imps that are infesting this hospital i hate you i hate you i hate you

ah ok the birds are actually imps, i think, because one just attacked argo for way too much damage for a bird and also its dealing poison (i scrolled through like two more pages of the transcript and travis doesn't actually say "its an imp in disguise" in those two pages but). so when travis said fitzroy saw "bird shapes" that was, i guess, in response to his 14 perception. and firbolg saw birds because travis didn't ask for a perception roll from justin. maybe travis will badly explain this later but it seems to me either the imps are disguised as birds the whole time, in which case the mayor probably should have mentioned that to the party, or else the imps only disguised themselves after they drove the townspeople away, which will then need a justification for that action. i can't wait to see which way he fumbles this.

the "bird" "rolls" a 20 to hit argo for 6 poison damage. i just looked up the imp stat block and it does say that this is the imp's sting, but it should count as a bite attack if it is polymorphed into a raven or rat. generally i do not think birds are known for biting, but this is on the designers of 5e not travis so i will let it slide.

>Travis: Yes. Um, now, also, you're lucky that it‘s you, Argo, because you feel, um, something. Some kind of liquid. Probably poison. Uh, y'know, on the bite from the bird on the attack. But… because you are Water Genasi, you have a natural, uh, immunity to poisons.

>Griffin: Um…

>Clint: Actually… to acid.

>Travis: Oh, whoops. Okay, yeah. You take some poison damage.

extremely funny exchange, i love almost giving travis points for knowing his party's traits, but then i gotta snatch them back because you fucked it big dawg.

transcript writes "hoo boisie" as "hoo boysie"

ah, the imp does an additional 7 poison damage. notably, travis does not call for the required CON save to half the poison damage.

hmmmm, griffin wants to catch the "bird" with mage hand, which, i guess isn't technically outside of the abilities of mage hand. there's no set weight to a tiny-sized creature, and it's polymorphed, not illusioned, so, you know, a bird weighs less than 10 lbs. he arbitrates this as a contested strength check, which is fine. what's less fine is that he just launched a surprise round on his players and is allowing this before calling for the initiative roll

>Travis: Oh! You win, because this thing is not very strong. So it‘s a 12 versus your 16, so you're able to grab it. And it‘s attempting to peck at the Mage Hand, but of course, to no avail.

>Now, as this happens, you see the other bird start flying around the room, as well as the two rats come out of their hiding places and start to approach you.

ok well specifically two birds and two rats is a lot more suspicious than some birds and rats.

>Travis: Now, here‘s the question I have for you fellows. Um, there‘s going to be lots of little battles throughout this building. There‘s lots of rooms. Would you rather roll initiative every time—

>Griffin: No.

>Travis: Or just keep the same initiative throughout?

in the twenty four weeks travis spent consulting with professional DMs and planning, he apparently not once asked any of them how to run a dungeon. yeah dude, keep the same initiative, what are you talking about.

order is Argo (19), Fitz (16), and Bolg (6)

I don't have their character sheets, I'm not good enough to just know what their average health pools would be at level 4, but clint just said that first attack of 13 dropped him to half, which makes the fact that this is supposed to be a multi-room dungeon pretty concerning. or would if i didn't know who was in charge here.

ichor is pronounced eye-kor, huh. i think i knew this but i still prefer ih-kor and that's my cross to bear.

>Fitzroy: Firbolg, I'm sorry about [killing a bird in front of you].

>Firbolg: Mm. Mm, this is… this is life.

>Fitzroy: It is? [laughs]

>Firbolg: This is how things happen. It was no harm meant.

>Fitzroy: It wa—I meant it tremendous harm!

>Firbolg: Hmm.

this is the second time this type of exchange has happened, where griffin makes an assumption about how the firbolg would feel about something based on how justin has portrayed their values so far, and both times justin has gone "nuh-uh" because he is, at his core, related to travis. i think he gets instinctively bristly whenever someone tries to establish anything about his character. maybe some leftover ptsd from what griffin did to taako again and again

earlier, when justin wildshaped into a cat, griffin made a reference (well, less of a reference and more just saying the title of the movie) the 2013 indie production A Talking Cat!?! which features the use of an MS paint circle superimposed over an actual cat's mouth that opens and closes to show he is talking. travis then does this exact same thing ten minutes later and its not funny here either.

travis finally remembers that poison involves CON saves and is retroactively asking clint for a save and giving him back health when he passes. that's fine. glad he caught and fixed that mistake.

>Travis: Okay. So uh, Argo, gain back half of those seven. So gain back three hit points. And Firbolg, you're going to take half damage. Uh, so you're going to take four poison damage. Would've been—

>Justin: That‘s not too bad.

>Travis: Would‘ve been eight if you hadn‘t saved, so…

i don't know why he needed to certify that two times as much as four is eight.

>Travis: Good job. Um, and the other imp is going to now swing his poisonous scorpion tail at Fitzroy.

the entire fight (and i'm assuming the rest of this, three part? how long does this fucking dungeon go) is roughly at this level of description. also since they aren't doing battlemaps and they don't have figs, like god please describe the creatures what the fuck. like, i know that imps have scorpion tails, because i've fought imps before in dnd and have seen digital tokens for them. but like "the rats transform back into imps" has prior to this point been the entire description given here. this is what i meant earlier with the hospital setting too. you get one image in your mind and then it gets disrupted because travis introduces a really big feature later on that you weren't aware of.

>Justin: It—I should've come up with some sort of bullshit fantasy cat, in hindsight. [laughing] But I didn‘t know that I'd ever seen one of those. And I can only have a challenge rating of one or two. So yeah, so basically, I'm just gonna—just gonna stand there and become a regular guy again. Just a regular Firbolg.

>Travis: … Okay. Anything else? You can move.

>Justin: I can—move—I mean, move away… [laughs] … from the stuff, I guess! I—no! I mean, I don't know where I—where it would be advantageous for me to move! No, I just stand there and change into a Firbolg!

dismissing wildshape is a bonus action travis.

>Travis: You are changing from a cat to a Firbolg, and you want to do it in an intimidating way. Make an intimidation check.

kind and benevolent DM won't know the rules and will absolutely kneecap you as a result, but hey, he's going to let you try to roll an intimidation.

ok there was a lot of joking here but i think justin was being sincere when he said he wanted to move out of danger and near to fitz, except there is an imp in front of him, he should have taken an OA

clint has once again flipped attack roll and damage roll in his brain (again, i think demarking your hit chance as attack roll is bad verbiage, made worse by how video game RPGs have solidified around the terminology of HIT), but both travis and griffin do not notice at all so clint has actually gotten a much stronger weapon than he had originally, which is probably fair considering it was priced similarly to the charisma cloak.

>Travis: Yeah, you slice him clean in twain.

>Clint: Woo! Aha!

>Travis: And he melts into black ichor.

fucking gripping combat narration.

for some reason the last imp hasn't changed from being a bird yet, and i sort of suspect its because travis isn't aware that imps have wing and can fly in their natural form

>Justin: Um, how does it work? How does it—it‘s a melee attack. Okay, melee attack. See, I'm no—I've never had to make melee attacks.

justin there have only been like three combat encounters in this campaign and you have cast shillelagh in every single one

>Travis: This is why we‘re practicing. This is why we‘re having this D&D-ass D&D adventure.

https://preview.redd.it/4gd4dz92bdyg1.png?width=665&format=png&auto=webp&s=de76ddf97bb2de113974d2da97a3c07c19e0bc6c

>Travis: Now, damage. Well, I'm not gonna make you roll damage, ‗cause he only has one hit point left. So you strike him! The thorns dig deep into his body! As the black ichor oozes from his wounds, he collapses to the ground!

well that's something at least. he seems really fixated on the idea they bleed black ichor though, he has specifically, and usually only, mentioned this one descriptor for every single imp death. magmin have their lava stop flowing, imps gush black ichor, this dm shit is easy.

hey can someone remind me why the HOG would bar others from doing this kind of work? you know, the rote work of pest control at a place no one is around and can't be entertained by?

>Travis: Well, so, the admin office that, uh, Argo had been set to explore, when you open the door, contains two small desks. And you guess that this one, administration office one, housed patient records, as the walls are lined with storage containers, all of which have been pulled open and their contents scattered to the wind.

>Above the desks are magical lanterns hanging from chains. On one of the chains is swinging an imp, who is completely surprised at your approach, so you guys are gonna get a round of surprise attacks on him.

i went back to double check the mission brief because travis loves to lie, this infestation happened overnight the night before the hospital was set to open. is there like, another hospital in town that is moving in? whose medical records are these? if you have sensitive information here already, shouldn't you have some sort of security? why were the doors not locked at least????

also i'm so curious to see if any of the other encounters have four imps and he's legitimately planned this place to have random numbers of imps in each room, or if he's panicking about how close they came to getting wiped in his first encounter so he's cut the numbers in every other room and will be doing shit like giving them surprise rounds on single 10hp enemies like they're doing right now.

also what the fuck is this thing with magic lanterns? he had this in the mines too, does he just want electricity but fantasy? like why couldn't this be a regular lantern?

fuck yeah dude fitz captured this imp which has allowed travis to do everyone's favorite bit, vaguely growling at everything griffin says like its snippers because no one speaks infernal

>Griffin: I look at the demon.

>Fitzroy: We… are gonna make a smash… on you.

>Justin: [laughing]

>Fitzroy: Until dead.

>Imp: Fuck you.

>Fitzroy: Wait, okay, see, that‘s what I thought! I thought maybe if I insulted your—so, hey, bud? Where‘d you come from, little fella? Firbolg: I—how can we translate this series of sounds from the imp into our tongue? Fuck… you.

>Imp: I came from up your butt.

>Clint: Actually—actually…

>Imp: [laughs]

>Clint: Argo has Actor, where you gain plus one charisma. You have advantage on deception or performance checks when trying to pass yourself off as a different person, and… you can mimic the speech of another person, or the sounds made by other creatures that you have been listening to, for at least one minute.

>Griffin: Okay. Just as a devil‘s advocate…

>Imp: [growly imp sounds]

>Griffin: It‘s like, I'm thinking of… let‘s just say… um… Martin Sheen uses his acting skills to pretend to be another character. ‗Cause that‘s what acting is. I don‘t think he can use his acting skills to suddenly speak Mandarin.

>Justin: [laughing] Are we just gonna pretend like the imp isn't speaking common to us?

>Imp: Ha. I said I came from out of your butt.

>Fitzroy: Yeah, we heard.

>Justin: So we‘re just gonna ignore that?

>Imp: It‘s just that nobody acknowledged my great joke.

another classic grad scene that has everything: travis immediately getting bored of a problem he set up and solving it (by having the imp suddenly know common), clint trying to play the game and throwing out ideas, griffin, for some reason, deciding to shit on that idea, even though while i agree this background wouldn't allow argo to suddenly become fluent in infernal, what griffin describes is essentially exactly what the phb is talking about. an actor can have an ear for language and learn to mimic it by rote memorization. michelle yeoh literally has to do this for memoirs of a geisha because she doesn't speak japanese.

and then travis gets pissy no one is laughing or acknowledging his stupid bit. perfect scene.

because once again travis has latched onto a bit, it doesn't matter that fitz is providing a credible threat vis a vis rampant imp murder, this imp is a rude dude and is going to keep doing the exorcist bit but worse. which does lead to griffin casting shocking grasp and just hoping he doesn't do enough damage to kill it because griffin doesn't know about declaring non-lethal attacks

>Imp: I've had worse shocks from the carpet and touchin‘ doorknobs. Heh heh heh heh heh.

>Fitzroy: You're going to die. Like, do you get it?

>Imp: [makes another long fart noise]

>Fitzroy: Does anyone else want to try—like, I've tried—you're gonna die. Like, we‘ll kill you.

>Imp: [continues farting]

this genuinely sucks. like don't no-sell your players like this especially with some bitchass grunt creature. like how are you justifying this behavior? it would be one thing to do this and then call for a history or arcana check or what have you, and explain that imps are from the infernal plane and the bodies they have in the material plane are constructs, so this imp does not fear death, but that doesn't happen. this imp just isn't afraid to die for no reason whatsoever. well, that's not true, the reason is because griffin wants to know where these imps came from and travis wants that to be a big cutscene reveal so he under no circumstances can allow griffin to succeed here, which is why no intimidation roll is ever called.

oh my god this scene keeps going. it is that above exchange but they keep repeating it because they are all so bad at improv

griffin releases the imp from mage hand as a show of good faith in a different negotiation tactic, and travis says the imp attacks them and then turns invisible. they are obviously still in initiative order you fuck and even if they weren't, an attack begins a new round of combat which means that the imp is then restricted by the action economy and cannot both attack and turn invisible in the same turn TRAVIS

>Griffin: Does it look like—I want to investigate and make sure. Did it look like this imp was like, going through medical records? Or did it look like it just trashed this office?

>Travis: Just trashed. There doesn‘t seem to be any—you don‘t even have to investigate to see that it doesn‘t look like there‘s any order or method to it whatsoever. Poirot would be very disappointed.

for once in the like 10 hours they have been playing, one of his players actually sounds engaged, so travis decides to no-sell everything that player tries to do and won't even let him roll for it.

45 minutes into this mission:

>Justin: What are we trying to do again?

they're in a room with a locked safe, and argo tries to lockpick it

>Clint: Well, then, I should try to open the other [safe].

>Travis: Okay. Uh, make a dexterity saving throw for me.

>Clint: A 15… plus… dexterity… six.

i was going to stop here and point out this shouldn't be a save, it's clearly a check, but then the next words out of travis's mouth indicate that this roll is actually not related to opening a locked safe at all, but to arbitrate what happens immediately after:

>Travis: Okay. As you open it, it ignites a fireball trap within that shoots across the room, but you are able to dodge out of the way at the last minute, and it strikes the wall opposite you. The safe is empty.

travis's dm "style" can probably be best summed up as "whatever it takes to make my players feel like an asshole"

>Travis: Um, so. The door to Dr. Nox‘s office is locked, but you are able to use the skeleton key. I also, because I am a kind and benevolent DM, assuming that you are locking all of these doors behind you so that you don‘t have to check any of them again.

fuck off. IF LOCKS CAN STOP IMPS HOW ARE THEY EVEN IN THIS STUPID FUCKING HOSPITAL

for that matter, that means they can just ignore any locked door why did you give them a skeleton key if APPARENTLY locking a door will prevent imps from entering

cont