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Lately (in terms of how far I've listened) it's turned into a lot of him just describing stuff and even having scenes with multiple NPCs expositing at each other while the players just sit there*. I think it works best when everyone gets to do stuff, and the story emerges from their actions.

 

This arc feels like a Final Fantasy game.

 

*It's pretty ridiculous how good he is at carrying out these conversations with himself, but it sucks the energy out of the game. It's like the opposite of action.

 

Yeah... I've only gotten so far as the end of the Raven vs. Ram arc but, as I mentioned in my "Other Podcasts" post that I made because I forgot this thread existed, I'm a bit tickled by how passively cooperative the players' behavior is in Griffin's game, especially considering how vocal Justin in particular is about getting to the action. At least twice, an NPC inserted themselves into the players' story to do what they couldn't, which one time involved another of the great GM sins: suddenly-appearing incurable poison. It's honestly impressive how everyone just rolls with Griffin's occasional detours into his spoken-word fantasy novel; I think the only person to complain about it is Travis, who's called Griffin several times on saying no to perfectly workable ideas and on doing things in combat with his NPCs without rolling (or when Angus resisted Merle's "Zone of Truth" spell with a Charisma of at least 22).

 

Like I said in my other post, it's fun to hear it play out, but any group that I've ever played with would basically be turning this into DM of the Rings really quick.

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Lately (in terms of how far I've listened) it's turned into a lot of him just describing stuff and even having scenes with multiple NPCs expositing at each other while the players just sit there*. I think it works best when everyone gets to do stuff, and the story emerges from their actions.

 

This arc feels like a Final Fantasy game.

 

*It's pretty ridiculous how good he is at carrying out these conversations with himself, but it sucks the energy out of the game. It's like the opposite of action.

Yeah, I think a more narrative driven show is what they were aiming for though, I wish they paid attention to the story of their own game though hah.

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Yeah... I've only gotten so far as the end of the Raven vs. Ram arc but, as I mentioned in my "Other Podcasts" post that I made because I forgot this thread existed, I'm a bit tickled by how passively cooperative the players' behavior is in Griffin's game, especially considering how vocal Justin in particular is about getting to the action. At least twice, an NPC inserted themselves into the players' story to do what they couldn't, which one time involved another of the great GM sins: suddenly-appearing incurable poison. It's honestly impressive how everyone just rolls with Griffin's occasional detours into his spoken-word fantasy novel; I think the only person to complain about it is Travis, who's called Griffin several times on saying no to perfectly workable ideas and on doing things in combat with his NPCs without rolling (or when Angus resisted Merle's "Zone of Truth" spell with a Charisma of at least 22).

 

Like I said in my other post, it's fun to hear it play out, but any group that I've ever played with would basically be turning this into DM of the Rings really quick.

 

If we're gonna go whole hog analyzing their show, some of that is his players' fault. A lot of the time when he creates non-combat situations for them to interact and roleplay they just immediately become dicks and then bored. At least they're consistent about it, to their credit. Justin plays D&D like it's Dark Souls and all the NPCs are just pillars to roll into barrels around. I would definitely feel constrained as a player, but listening to Justin ask if stuff will happen while STUFF IS HAPPENING is the most frustrating part of the show to me. The part where you roll dice is solidly less than half the D&D experience.

 

My favorite single part of TAZ is still when they met Tom Bodett and had fun yard sprinkler times, and magically no one needed to chop something with an axe.

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Justin plays D&D like it's Dark Souls and all the NPCs are just pillars to roll into barrels around. I would definitely feel constrained as a player, but listening to Justin ask if stuff will happen while STUFF IS HAPPENING is the most frustrating part of the show to me. The part where you roll dice is solidly less than half the D&D experience.

 

Oh, that'd totally be a problem for me as well, were I a player, but it's funny enough for me as a listener, as opposed to Griffin's intermittent excesses of NPC-on-NPC storytelling, which mostly break even for me. Also, it might not be fair, but I blame Griffin a little for not tailoring some of the encounters better to his players' skills, interests, and avenues of growth. A murder mystery on a train is cool, but if only one of your players is interested in solving it and even then only after a lot of prodding... I don't know. Everyone's got a lot of room to grow, for sure. At the very least, I ought to give Adventure Zone a lot of credit for improving my opinion of Travis, who's definitely the weakest chair in MBMBaM but is so down for anything in the Adventure Zone that I can't help but love him for it.

 

Side note: I'm a little curious about an alternate-universe Adventure Zone where Griffin polices his players' alignments more aggressively, because Justin is definitely Chaotic Neutral leaning towards Chaotic Evil by the third "scenario" of their campaign, rather than Chaotic Good.

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That just makes me want to listen in the hopes that Griffin does what one of my GMs did to a player who played way too evil for his alignment -- which is just declare one day, "Change your alignment. Paladin, you are free to react as is necessary for your character."

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In the the adventure zone zone (the offweek show they did during the max fun drive) they talk about alignment a little and also how Justin & Clint both kind of rerolled their characters to match more what they wanted to do after they got the basics under themselves. Like Travis created an entire backstory about being a folkhero and stuff, but Justin & Clint kind of felt their way through things as they went, and really aren't interested in holding themselves to the alignments they picked before they knew what their characters were. Like there are times where the three of them are just mercilessly mean/cruel to NPCs that kind of just bums me out. Like I LOVE Angus, and it makes me sad that he just kind of gets picked on whenever he comes up, especially because Griffin plays him so earnest and affectionate. I'm really most interested in seeing what story Griffin cooks up more than anything else, and I can see how if you're putting yourself in the place of either DM or player it can be frustrating and easy to say "i wouldn't do this. this would bother me or the players i play with normally"

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Justin & Clint kind of felt their way through things as they went, and really aren't interested in holding themselves to the alignments they picked before they knew what their characters were. Like there are times where the three of them are just mercilessly mean/cruel to NPCs that kind of just bums me out. Like I LOVE Angus, and it makes me sad that he just kind of gets picked on whenever he comes up, especially because Griffin plays him so earnest and affectionate.

 

The conversational cruelty to NPCs swings between funny and sad for me, but I'm particularly thinking of the time that Taako ordered a charmed Tom Bodet to step in front of the next train to come into station. That was, uh... Well, it'd probably be an instant alignment shift in one of my games, unless there was a great reason for it, which I don't think there was?

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The conversational cruelty to NPCs swings between funny and sad for me, but I'm particularly thinking of the time that Taako ordered a charmed Tom Bodet to step in front of the next train to come into station. That was, uh... Well, it'd probably be an instant alignment shift in one of my games, unless there was a great reason for it, which I don't think there was?

 

That was Merle. The other two talked him out of it. Justin was the only one concerned with not killing any of the hammerheads (possibly due to non-remembering).

 

I don't think he ever even said his alignment, but it would be kind of difficult to truly roleplay an evil character in their story.

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That was Merle. The other two talked him out of it. Justin was the only one concerned with not killing any of the hammerheads (possibly due to non-remembering).

 

I don't think he ever even said his alignment, but it would be kind of difficult to truly roleplay an evil character in their story.

 

Oops, my bad! Justin did say that he was Chaotic Good at some point during the Ram and Raven arc, that's what set me off on that mental path of roleplaying alignments. Up until then, I'd thought that fifth edition got rid of what was never frankly a particularly good system for constraining player behavior anyway.

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Is anyone else listening to Griffin's show Rose Buddies that he is doing with his wife?

I'm watching the show that they, I think, are going to be watching between bachelorverse shows, and this shit is bananas.

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So I'm only just getting into the McElroys and I really need a way to know which videos on the Polygon YouTube account are going to be them and which are just going to be standard game site videos. There are only so many in the Monster Factory playlist.

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There's no great way to do it. I am subscribed to the Polygon youtube channel. They don't post that much per day, so i'll just click on a video, see if either the McElroys or Phil Kollar or Nick Robinson are in it, and if not, quit watching.

 

Other than Monster Factory, Griffin's Amiibo Corner, Stonerz & Tomodachi Life, here are a couple Polygon McElroy vids

 

Here's a playlist of Griffin & Nick play Sonic Dreams Collection

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But you can't subscribe to a playlist on YouTube so it's automatically updated and delivered to your feed. If you're someone (like me) who actually subscribes to multiple channels on YouTube and uses that feed, Polygon's thousands of videos quickly becomes noise you become accustomed to ignoring. It's annoying. I can't believe playlist subscriptions isn't a thing on YouTube.

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Holy hell I don't know who these McElroy people are but I spent nearly my whole weekend just watching Monster Factory.

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Holy hell I don't know who these McElroy people are but I spent nearly my whole weekend just watching Monster Factory.

 

bless

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Holy hell I don't know who these McElroy people are but I spent nearly my whole weekend just watching Monster Factory.

The whole weekend? You have a stronger constitution than me! I couldn't breathe for laughing so hard for the fallout 4 one so I had to stop!

 

I've really fallen down a hole, and am enjoying the ride as I got into MBMBAM and Adventure Zone, decided to donate monthly to Maximum Fun, and branched out to Baby Geniuses and Judge John Hodgeman so far...

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Is anyone else listening to Griffin's show Rose Buddies that he is doing with his wife?

I'm watching the show that they, I think, are going to be watching between bachelorverse shows, and this shit is bananas.

 

This is late, but I've gotten into Rose Buddies lately. My wife has been a Bachelor (hate) watcher for a while now, but I've always avoided it...mostly because 2 hours a week for a reality show seems like way too much to me. I got into the podcast when they started doing their "Rose Buddiez" series on other shows and I liked it enough that I stuck around for the new Bachelorette season.

 

Which show was the bananas one that you were posting about? There were so many. The hotel hookup show. The Chinese insult comedy dating show. Are You The One, which is just the perfect reality TV show.

 

This might be weird, but I think part of the appeal for me is to see who the McElroy spouses are, since I've been listening to podcasts made by these weirdos since the Joystiq era.

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I think I was referring to Are You The One, as it was the only one whose premise intrigued me. That show is fucking amazing.

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Update: I've listened to 100 episodes of mbmbam and all of adventure zone so far. My life is falling apart/finally found its purpose.

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I think I was referring to Are You The One, as it was the only one whose premise intrigued me. That shoe is fucking amazing.

 

I'm legitimately excited for the new season to start. I never thought I'd say that when I first started listening to Rose Buddies.

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