Was the thread we had about How Did This Get Played an axe one? Anyway, the recent Night Trap episode was real good and had a story that genuinely spooked me even after I finished listening.
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hey, sorry to be a self-promotey on here but i started a new podcast recently that some of you may be into. it’s a left-leaning podcast on a lot of niche art and media and i plan to have some lefty twitter and videogame friends on various episodes. not all of the episodes are going to be about videogames, but specifically the second episode is about a super clunky but hyper-ambitious game called Soul Axiom that some of you all on here might be interested in:
the twitter for the podcast is here also: https://twitter.com/thebloodzonepod
i also second @Mothra 's recommendation of Michael and Us and have to add the lefty celeb/pop culture gossip podcast Eating For Free to the pile of recommendations for lefty podcasts: http://eatingforfree.libsyn.com
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interview every single selectbuttoneer
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hell yeah hell yeah
a few weeks ago i finally started listening to both The Dough Boys and the How Did This Get Played podcast and i really dig them!
not only is it great to have @Faithless’ takes on a mainstream gaming podcast, but also it seems like Nick Wiger could post here too?
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I finally listened to a bunch of eps of How Did This Get Played this week!! I really like this podcast, it’s always nice to find a new one.
Good god am I ready for The Adventure Zone’s Amnesty arc to be done. Obviously, Justin’s character Duck is wonderful, but everything else is just not doing it for me.
I think a big part of the problem is that the new system they’re using, Monster of the Week, requires them to constantly describe their rolls and their options, as a result of that role. They then debate it a bit, then pick an action.
As a listener, you’re constantly pulled out of the narrative as time freezes and the player picks whatever actions might best fit their character. It’s very much a “game,” which contrasts to the first season’s D&D system, where they really wouldn’t often talk about the rules. They would just be presented with a situation, then say what they did. Sometimes Griffin would stop them if their action was unrealistic or didn’t fit the rules, but it wasn’t a common thing. The narrative was very much the focus.
I’m also finding it super hard to keep track of what’s going on in individual scenes. Take Duck fighting the shapeshifter a few eps back: I have no fucking idea what that fight looked like or how he beat the thing. There was so much prompting, hemming, hawin’, and deciding, that by the time a choice was made, I’d lost the plot.
tldr: TAZ Amnesty feels like a board game being dictated to me
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God if they’re still having issues with that either Monster of the Week is worse than I thought it was, or they still don’t get how the system works.
Because apocalypse engine games usually flow much better at the table than D&D in my experiences with them.
I think it’s the fact that Griffin wants the audience to understand what’s happening, so he often will describe the situation, then says “what do you do,” the player says what they’re thinking of doing, then Griffin is like, “Okay, this sounds like an ‘Act Under Pressure,’ do you want to do that?” Then they usually agree, then he’s like, “So roll your dice.” The player does so, we hear the result, then Griffin describes what happens.
Now, that’s definitely the easiest and quickest way it could be done, but the fact that he always has to say what category the action falls into is, then tell them to roll, then relay if that’s bad or good, then describe the thing, results in this constant removal to meta-game, then dive back into narrative, that makes it real hard for me to pay attention.
At worst, they talk about their options a lot (Clint and Travis do this a lot), which is agony for me.
I think it’s the categories that all actions must fit into that’s the problem. The fact that actions must always be stated to fit into one category or the other before they can be taken results in a constant halting of action.
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Agreed, I have a hard time following the action for the same reason. When the brothers were playing D&D, it often felt to me like the game mechanics only really became explicit in battles (which were the weakest part of the show for me). The rest of the show was loose, goofy improv. Now that most narrative choices are explicitly mechanical, I have a much harder time following things.
It also doesn’t help that the characters are less compelling, the narrative features constant flashbacks and solo scenes, it takes itself much too seriously, and setting the story in the real world grounds the story and characters in a way that is anathema to the style of absurdist humor that makes the McElroys fun to listen to.
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It just sounds like they could edit most of that stuff out and don’t for mystery reasons
Monster of the Week is one of the worst pbta games but it isnt terrible its just mediocre.
Like, I know they edited all the rules talk out of their dnd games
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God, that’s a great way of putting it. This is a system where even roleplaying has set rules and moves one must adhere to, so all the discussion of rules isn’t just contained to battles. I distinctly remember the worst part of all of TAZ Balance was this bizarre battle with a giant tree they get into right before arriving at Rockport. It takes up an whole episode, involves them killing a tree, and nothing memorable whatsoever happens.
And yeah, I feel like the core cast has barely talked to each other. I can’t remember the last time Duck and Aubrey talked, and for all the backstory between Aubrey and Ed, they didn’t actually interact at all until just beforehand.
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Oh hey is this the thread where I finally elucidate at length the fact that while most people think TAZ got bad with their new Amnesty arc, which I haven’t listened to, by contrast I think TAZ got bad like 10 episdoes into the Balance thing everyone (on the wider internet) seems to love
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Please give us no further details about how you dislike the entirety of The Adventure Zone
i have been really enjoying The Empty Bowl
it’s justin mcelroy (my favorite mcelroy) and dan goubert (who writes a blog called Cerealously which i hadnt heard of until this podcast, on which he is very low-key funny). they talk about cereal news and reviews while calming music and ocean sounds play. That’s about it. It’s nice.
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New Adventure Zone campaign released its first episode the other day. It’s already a huge improvement over Amnesty. They’re no longer fruitlessly grasping at unearned pathos and emotion right from the jump. They’re now in their element, goofing around and letting things develop organically.
Travis’s attempts at representation continue to be super cringey, but at least he means well I guess.
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God, agreed on all points.
Really love Justin’s character, as usual.
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are there any good anime / jrpg centric podcasts?
someone recorded most panels from this conference about monetary policy and sovereignty in africa. only listened to the first two, but so far it’s all aces
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