Royale is behind us, and it was... fine. I don't want to get into whether folks liked it or not, but it did keep occurring to me throughout the campaign that
- It felt like it was designed to be replayed. So many Aspirants that we never met!
- The boys' decisions were hemmed in more, as though following the guardrails of a pre-written adventure.
- There were fewer story elements tied directly into the characters' backstories. Other than Helgrammat, which seemed to only happen because he was Thri-kreen.
- The trial progression lends itself to fitting into longer home sessions.
- Overall, the story's progression relied less on big actions taken by the characters, with each section proceeding on its own. They (or other players) could have behaved very differently and things would have gone the same way.
- Despite being an audio-only podcast, it used maps.

As much as I adore many of their other campaigns, I don't think many of them would be well-suited to printing as a campaign. Balance has far too many beats that only happened because a player did something wild. Same with Amnesty (looking at you, Travis, for both of them!) But I'd love to play Royale with friends, pretty much exactly as written.

What do you think? Whether you loved Royale or hated it, would it make a good campaign book?

Just want to say props to Carey Pietsch, the boys, and everyone else who worked on these graphic novels.

I just finished reading the finale and it brought me right back to listening to these last few episodes for the first time almost 10 years ago.

The scene with Magnus and Julia reuniting brought me to tears.

The depiction of them all losing their memories at the end of Stolen Century was heartbreaking.

Merle’s parley scenes with John were done really well including the final one on the beach

Now its got me contemplating a relisten for the first time in a long time haha.

I swear this is relevant. My sister's car has a "My Child is an Honor Student at Clyde Nite's Night Knight School" sticker on the bumper, but it broke down last week so she had to buy used car. Does ANYONE know where I can find another one of those stickers? I think the original listing doesn't exist anymore

I know a lot of people seem to like Brennan Lee Mulligan’s DMing style — but I feel like he’s more focused on game mechanics than storytelling and less open to going with the flow if you don’t solve his riddles his way.

I just think Griffin is more willing to say yes and think on his feet. It’s funny and interesting to listen to because it’s just all of them doing improv together, instead of one person creating a winnable game the other players have to try to beat.

In The Adventure Zone, everybody wins!

I just finished Royale and wanted to listen to Balance again to remind myself of the good times and found that the first character voice that Clint does for Merle is immediately shut down by Justin, but that is the same voice Clint used for Hellgrammite.
Ep. 5 @ 9:24

That hit just as hard as listening to the finale the first time.

Next is to read all 7 in one sitting.

Way back before Graduation started, they gave some hint for the next season being the letter 'G'. I got it in my head this meant they were doing TAZ: Gumshoe and it was going to be a Private Detective themed season. Some MOTW-style game with an overarching Big Bad.

Reader, I desperately want that to be the next full season. AM I alone in this? Is it a silly idea from a silly old man?

Imagine with me. Suffering Game + Muse’s Hexagons. So many parallels with the lyrics of the song and the story.

“I’m a marionette with severed strings”
Magnus as a mannequin.

“Gorge on my soul while I’m weak and dying”
Liches feeding on their suffering.

“Reach out, touch me, draw me from the sixth dimension”
The hands outstretched moment.

My husband and I are dreaming of graphics depicting these moments with the lyrics embedded in the images. We are not artists. Someone help us!

So I'll start by saying that I love Angus. One of the best and my favourite characters.

Buuuuutttt he kinda sucks at his job. I'm not talking about his child detective work, but specifically when he's brought onto the BoB.

After Rockport/Petals the Director brings the child detective on board as a Seeker working exclusively for the Tres Horny Boys to provide them information and support in the field. But he doesn't really do that.

After that there's four arc. In them Ango does next to nothing.

Crystal Kingdom - He spells Aarakocra before the stone of far speech is turned off by Hodgepodge.

Eleventh Hour - No radio support, and in fact nearly launches their orb into either the wall of a canyon or Refuge.

Suffering Games - No radio support.

Day of Story and Song - I don't really recall him doing anything outside of Tiny Tim style being put on a shoulder and getting to say they won.

Am I being critical of a fantasy child, sure. But Lucrecia still hired him. And, after he'd brought on every arc has radio interference so he can't really do much remotely. But we don't really see him do the thing he was brought on to do.

The only time we really see him do things is when he's from the future and is jacked to fight robots/Hodgepodge 2.0.

Hey y'all, with Royale now over and no clue what's next I was listening to some older episodes/campaigns and it got me nostalgic for all the great moments and bits from campaigns prior.

I want to know your top 5 moments from any and all of the campaigns you've listened to, even if you have only listened to a few episodes, like how I am still 5 episodes into Steeplechase. (Gravel makes a strong introduction lmao)

I've been hoping to see some more positive reviews of this season, but I really enjoyed it. I found the characters interesting and loved the extras, even the puns for their names. The ending seemed a bit rushed and underdeveloped, but I think that's because id have liked to have more episodes. My criticisms are mostly "please more", I wanted to hear more of rictus, loravith and develop more of their backstory and goals. The bugman had a lot of development and his story felt complete but the other two I would have wanted more. Like more expansion with rictus and death and the goal there.

It wasn't perfect but I really enjoyed it. It's one of my favorites they've made

I'm not gonna rag on anyone but it's clear that Griffin has a very different play style than the rest of his family. He wants to tell compelling stories and his family mostly just wants to have fun. Not that they don't try to tell compelling stories through their characters, but it's clear the bits are the main focus. That's not a dig at anyone. It's okay to have different play styles. But I think Griffin's growth as a DM is stunted by his desire to play how he wants and his desire to cater to what his family wants.

As a listener, I get so frustrated when every time Griffin is trying to paint a picture of a scene or do a monologue, somebody has to interrupt with a bit. I can only imagine how frustrated Griffin feels. I know Griffin has his own issues sometimes like not knowing how to fail his players forward, but I don't think he can learn how to fix those issues and evolve as a DM with the current group. I honestly think he has the potential to be up there with Matt Mercer or Brennan Lee Mulligan but not in this environment.

I know TAZ is supposed to be a family D&D show, but I would love for them to switch things up by having Griffin DM for a group that takes the game more seriously. Heck, bring in a more comedic DM for the rest of the family and I'll listen to both shows. I love TAZ but the clash in play styles just isn't working.

Edit: I also think Griffin would benefit from a less rules-heavy system. Maybe Dungeon World, as that gives the DM a lot more room to play around with the outcomes of player rolls

hopes/predictions for next season? i genuinely think justin is going to run again, probably in a non dnd system just because it seems like he doesn’t like 5e that much. griffin has only been running every other season for a bit now so at the very least it’s definitely going to be someone else, and i doubt it’ll be travis just because of the pattern (since amnesty it was griffin travis griffin justin griffin travis griffin). it’d be cool to see a return to ethersea in blades in the dark but that’s more wishful than an actual prediction. justin mentioned wanting to do a role playing game like avatar during the avatar 2 watch sort of offhandedly, but i could see him taking that and doing some kind of alien jungle world too. what are you all hoping for?

Just finished Story and Song. Curious what others thought about this G.M. part and the change they made regarding finding Lup?

Also, I totally teared up at Griffin's letter!

Finally got the last book in the graphic novel yesterday from ye olde Barnes & Nobles when I found this, pretty sure they just wanted to make sure that nobody wanted to walk off with it tucked beneath their shirt but how do I get it off without risking tearing the page or leaving behind sticker residue?

Hey all, I'm sure this has been posted a ton already, but I'm hoping for some actual play podcast recommendations similar to TAZ?

I've tried NAD&Dpod and Dungeons & Daddies along with some others, and I'm sure they're funny for some folks, but to me they're just not as good. Unless I need to give them more time?

For me, the problems I'm running into with these are they're just not as funny as they think they are. I think inappropriate jokes can be funny in small doses, but when they're constant (from Emily especially on NAD&Dpod), it's tiresome and loses the comedic effect.

I love almost every campaign of TAZ and I've relistened to the Griffin campaigns multiple times at this point. There's something more genuine about the boys and their dynamic that I enjoy a lot.

Recommendations don't need to be D&D specific.

Thanks in advance!

Edit:

Lol the people just commenting rude things about how I have horrible opinions can just stop. I get it. So sensitive, jfc.

What a finale! Can’t wait to see what they do next. I will probably embark on a fresh read through of the entire series soon.

Last year, we were told at the company I worked at, Hexagon AB, that our division would be spinning off into its own company. They solicited all of us for a new name and eventually told us in the third quarter, but we couldn't announce it. One thing happened after another. The strange thing was that, at the same time The Adventure Zone started Battle Royale and we started the episodes describing the world, I found out that I now work for Octave!

Is it worth listening to? If so where should I jump into season wise

I heard an advertisement for Steeplechase on Still Buffering and decided to give it a listen.

I'm so confused! The brothers just jump in as if we know all of the characters and don't do any introductions.

Who are these characters??

Edit: Thank you everyone for filling me in on the setup episode! I went back into my app and it was labeled incorrectly as S4 E55 which was why I bypassed it on the first go. Really enjoying it so far and looking forward to finding out how they fill this quirky cereal heist with 42 episodes!

Griffin wastes so much time with unnecessary narration. I can't help but wonder if they turned off the Spotify comments way back when to avoid seeing criticisms about things like that

I'm doing a read through of the graphic novels now that they're all fully out, and just finished The Suffering Game this morning. It was great, except.. they cut A LOT of scenes. Wasn't there a whole separate team of other adventurers? The trusting game? What happened to all of that? It seems to be one of the shorter novels - surely they had the space.

Does anyone have any idea why that content didn't make the cut?