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15 minutes ago, YoThatLimp said:

I happen to agree with the feedback given, but I often feel like criticizing role playing feels too much like saying "Your Fun is Wrong". If Griffin is having a good time, and his players are having a good time I don't really see a problem. It might not be for us, but as long as the people involved with it directly are having fun I can't really fault them. 

 

I mean, it's not outrageously presumptuous for me to have an opinion on a publicly released piece of media, is it? Are you really suggesting that I should keep it to myself if I think that there are problems with it that caused me to stop listening? If Griffin and his players really aren't interested in feedback, especially constructive feedback from people with more experience in roleplaying, then they could probably save a lot of time by not having to record and edit their game into a podcast. However, they do, and as a work of entertainment, it's clearly lacking for some.

 

Also, there are multiple instances where someone on the podcast isn't enjoying themselves. The players (especially Justin, but sometimes Clint and even Travis) get frustrated with Griffin pushing them along or shutting down their ideas, and Griffin gets frustrated with the players fucking around and not taking his story or NPCs seriously. It's not like I'm shitting on the unadulterated joy of strangers, I'm saying that Griffin (and the players) have some weaknesses at the root of those frustrations that could be improved with something other than fulsome praise.

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I'm a relatively recent TAZ listener but I have some opinions. Mostly parroting what others have said.

 

The impression I get is that each of the McElroys wants the show to be something different. Justin wants it to be entertaining and Clint just tags along. Travis has more experience playing tabletop games and has more confidence in the mechanics of D&D. Griffin wants to tell his story. All of these things are clashing! With FatT, everyone is confident in the mechanics, understands that the tone is going to shift wildly between comedy and tragedy from session to session, and ultimately everyone has confidence in Austin as a GM.

 

However, FatT is an actual play podcast and TAZ is a comedy podcast that uses D&D. It does get bogged down in LORE and STORY a bit too often, and the players are shut down from doing something clever or interesting by Griffin a few too many times. He's just not as talented or experienced as Austin as a GM! That's the long and the short of it.

 

It should also be noted that not everything the McElroys do is gold. MBMBaM took several years before they weren't awful, and even now they sometimes go off on a jag that isn't that funny (I know humour is subjective! but for me the quality of their podcasts varies wildly). TAZ has brought up very different problems, like scope: this whole story has been going on for YEARS now at this point. I suspect they didn't expect to take this long to do, and they occasionally mention that there are long gaps between their recordings. It's easy to forget all the details when there are a lot of moving parts.

 

When the current campaign wraps up, I hope they do some shorter form stuff and use a few different games. I'm still enjoying TAZ as light entertainment and not some great work of fiction from a GENIUS STORYTELLER.

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I don't begrudge them for a second, but I think the podcast would be better served if they did weekly episodes. I'm not saying they can or they should, but it would be better if they did. If you cut an entire year off of the run of this arc, I bet a lot of complaints either disappear or are mitigated.

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On the flipside I've watched a bit of the MBMBAM show on Seeso and it's way exceeded my expectations. Episode where they are teamed up with high-schoolers is great.

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There won't be an adventure zone this week. Griffin and Henry are sick and Griffin hasn't had time to prepare for recording/the episode. The next episode will go up next week.

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2 hours ago, Patrick R said:

On the flipside I've watched a bit of the MBMBAM show on Seeso and it's way exceeded my expectations. Episode where they are teamed up with high-schoolers is great.

 

I fucking love that episode. Griffin constantly doing the dab is so good.

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What are people thinking about the new style TAZ? It seems like Griffin's definitely gone for a more hands-off approach for the DM'ing. I thinks it's pretty interesting and to be honest I just love listening to the McElroys exist so I'd be happy with a lot of their stuff when they work as a unit. 

 

I feel like one day they'll just blow up in the mainstream, but I'm not sure when, how, why, who, what. It seems insane that these guys are so funny and talented and are constricted to a few popular podcasts and youtube serieseseses.

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4 hours ago, Dosed said:

What are people thinking about the new style TAZ? It seems like Griffin's definitely gone for a more hands-off approach for the DM'ing. I thinks it's pretty interesting and to be honest I just love listening to the McElroys exist so I'd be happy with a lot of their stuff when they work as a unit. 

 

I feel like one day they'll just blow up in the mainstream, but I'm not sure when, how, why, who, what. It seems insane that these guys are so funny and talented and are constricted to a few popular podcasts and youtube serieseseses.

Well Griffin was featured in Forbes....

While I'm sure Seeso isn't a massive streaming service, it's still a pretty big deal that they have a show on there.

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I like that they're experimenting with story telling tools and format. TAZ is my favorite podcast, and they would have to work pretty hard to make something I wouldn't enjoy thoroughly, I think.

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I appreciate Griffin trying out different game styles, and I think that moving away from D&D format would probably be beneficial, but I don't think the German-style board game-esque mechanics (or whatever this should be called) that focus on resource/experience collecting, while dealing with the story mostly on a macro-level is the way to go. In fact it feels like the opposite of what TAZ is all about. When they finally got the game running there were very few small, interesting character moments that make the series so interesting and fun for me. I hate to say this, but unless things change drastically after this one, I really hope that this arc doesn't last for much more than two episodes.

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Seems like he's giving them more freedom on the micro scale.

 

But even less freedom on the macro scale. It's very obviously going to still go exactly where Griffin wants it to go without them having a choice in the matter. But of course, because it's a flashback, that makes sense. But that's why you don't do flashbacks. To the memories players never had in mind for their character. Forcing them to be someone else.

 

:fart:

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I am for every decision they make that expands the space for creativity and exposition, and cuts down on the rules they have to follow, the mechanics they adhere to, and the rigidity by which the story is driven.

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The new arc is interesting as a mini-game thing (provided it doesn't take way too long,) but the first episode of it has helped me realize that my growing indifference to the series is really rooted in the characters the players are... playing, I guess. The whole "the fate of the world rests on their shoulders" thing isn't really that compelling when I don't find the characters themselves very interesting (personal preference, obviously.) I'm kind of ready for them to wrap this whole thing up so we can move on to characters that have a bit more thought invested from the get-go than they had this time around.

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I imagine that that's because those characters were presumably initially conceived of as goof delivery vessels. In as much as they were conceived at all, that is, rather than improvised.

 

A campaign with a better idea of what it might eventually become (rather than something that started as a one-off filler episode) should stand a better chance of coherence in that regard, but I'm still not convinced that drama is something I want from the McElroys.

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I'd agree that's probably the reason I don't find any of the player characters particularly interesting this time around. In possible future campaigns, I don't think interesting characters would necessarily be incompatible with good jokes. As to whether or not that will actually happen is another question I guess.

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Justin & Russ did a Usual Suspects video for Polygon and it is very funny if you have already seen the movie.

 

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I wish everyone on all these McElroy shows would stop saying "uh" to mean "one." Like you want to say, "I only have one banana" but these people all say, "You know like A banana" but pronounce the a like UHHH with a bunch of emphasis.

 

Gahhh pet peeve. That said if I didn't listen to like 8 McElroy things a week I wouldn't notice.

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On 4/27/2017 at 1:54 AM, jennegatron said:

we have some Fushigi art

 

Love freddiew. Is he linked with the McElroy's, though? Can't find anything connecting them...

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2 hours ago, Ben X said:

 

Love freddiew. Is he linked with the McElroy's, though? Can't find anything connecting them...

On MBMBAM earlier this year they claimed they were going to become fushigi art patrons. I'm pretty sure they actually set aside ~$400 as incentive.

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1 hour ago, Cleinhun said:

On MBMBAM earlier this year they claimed they were going to become fushigi art patrons. I'm pretty sure they actually set aside ~$400 as incentive.

I love that somewhere someone gets to write off $500 for 'Fushigi Art Patronage' as a work expense. 

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I finally watched the Seeso series. I liked it a lot overall, although some of the bits were definitely a bit awkward. Not surprisingly, I prefer their spontaneous humor to the more scripted stuff.

 

It would be interesting to know what people who haven't listened to the show thought about the TV series. I imagine that the transformation from geeky TV boys to these super confident, well-liked live show hosts in the last episode must have come as a surprise to some viewers at least.

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I've kinda gotten to the point lately where I think that Griffin's 30 Under 30 status may have actually gotten to his head a little bit? I feel like the McElroy stuff has slowly been getting more self-indulgent, with he as chief perpetrator, and I've had to stop listening to Rose Buddies as a result. His whiny goof-voice just annoys me now. I think it's also possible that I did what I did with Travis, and just over-exposed myself to their shows, so I've cut back to just Adventure Zone and MBMBAM (although I agree that TAZ is frustrating in regards to its obviously-narratively-scripted nature).

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They call their advertisement section "The Money Zone." I think self-indulgence is a major part of their whole enterprise. The first time I gave up listening to MBMBaM was after Griffin shouted about Pokemon for what felt like 25 minutes. I only recently started listening again and I put it on 1.5x speed.

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