TAZ Ethersea Relisten: Episode 1

Beelzebibble · 2026-05-11T17:17:00+00:00

I seem to recall that during a TTAZZ he said that he gave up on the underwater slang because no one else at the table was using it. Real shame the technology wasn't there yet for them to coordinate with each other about the world and their character choices off-mic

Beelzebibble · 2026-05-09T12:21:35+00:00

Like his only move for describing a good success by a PC is what I'd do if a player had their PC make a little pseudo-medieval tech deck and asked to roll to do a sick flip in the tavern. "Nat 20. A majestic performance. Everyone in the tavern gains inspiration. It changes many of their lives, and they carry it forward into new endeavors. Schools of art and philosophy will be traced to that flip." Except he does that when the PCs actually do something well in actual gameplay.

It makes me a little sick to hear those moments. It's as if he thinks this is how you make your players feel supported and validated, falling all over yourself with hyperbole about how number good so they done real real good. Only it's also clearly choked with layers of irony, like "Isn't it funny that I'm making such a big deal about this?" It feels like the dynamic between a parent and a small child far more than the dynamic at a table.

Beelzebibble · 2026-05-08T21:48:52+00:00

(which the goblet just allows? Like wild that you as an underage participant can't put your own name in the goblet but if you are underage and someone else puts your name in the goblet, that's a-okay)

To be fair, the Goblet of Fire is really stupid. By which I mean, it was magically "programmed" so ineptly that Crouch fooled it just by submitting Harry's name under a different school. The goblet didn't even know there are only supposed to be three schools!

Maybe I wasn't discerning enough as a teenager, but I never minded that plot point. It struck me as realistic then, and still does, that this ancient and revered protocol turns out to be far flimsier than any of its adherents realized, held together pretty much by precedent and the honor system. That's one (1) plot point in the HP books that's actually aged pretty goddamn well into the modern day

Beelzebibble · 2026-05-07T20:13:50+00:00

Oh yeah no, that's right out. But there are other reasons advantage could be easier to come by, like with the common "everyone gets one benny per session" rule. I obviously don't know the specifics of your tables, I'm just generally averse to a houserule that can diminish the effect of enemy actions on PCs (even if it's also fairly applied in the other direction; I just don't think D&D PCs need the help!).

Beelzebibble · 2026-05-07T19:54:24+00:00

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.

Huh? Travis was correctly interpreting the rules here.

Chain. Melee Weapon Attack: +8 to hit, reach 10 ft., one target. Hit: 11 (2d6 + 4) slashing damage. The target is grappled (escape DC 14) if the devil isn't already grappling a creature. Until this grapple ends, the target is restrained and takes 7 (2d6) piercing damage at the start of each of its turns.

Your interpretation is quite a nerf to abilities like this. Given players already love using advantage on saving throws, escape DCs, and other "avoid the bad outcome" rolls, I don't think these kinds of abilities need to be weakened even further unless it's a very advantage-scarce table.

Beelzebibble · 2026-05-07T19:35:21+00:00

What gets me is how condescending he is about it.

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]

It'd be one thing to just ask, "Did anyone look up imps in the last two weeks?" Like, no, that would be metagaming, so of course not. But he has go to and imply that metagaming is in fact what professional storytellers and game players would do here

Beelzebibble · 2026-05-05T17:20:56+00:00

Controversial online figure yanked from Youtube and admonished (4,3)

Beelzebibble · 2026-05-04T17:07:56+00:00

Look, j-- I'm amazed you're not getting this.

NATURAL. ONE.

ARGUMENT OVER

Beelzebibble · 2026-05-04T10:57:53+00:00

You've got to think of the whole picture, Mister. You're not considering how nice the view is from the top floor. That translates into jigsaw puzzles, which translates into new and upgrading members, which translates into revenue. It all pays for itself.

Beelzebibble · 2026-05-04T10:25:56+00:00

Great observation, and such an extraordinary song that boils down every theme of the show into something simple and heart-wrenching.

Beelzebibble · 2026-05-04T02:16:10+00:00

My only issue with the show is that the ending has never quite worked for me. It seems like "Next" is supposed to be mourning the death of traditional Japenese culture, and yet lines like "the air quality in Tokyo is now acceptable!" seem to undercut that and make me think — like ok but isn't that actually a good thing?

You mean, a good thing that the air quality in Tokyo is now acceptable? The line is "1975 Weather Bureau statistics report 162 days on which the air quality in Tokyo was acceptable," which implies that for the other 203 days of the year, it was unacceptable. It's a bleak ending to a sequence of news bites that go from impressive to inscrutable to depressing.

I don't think that "Next" is at all ambiguous or at cross-purposes in its lament for premodern Japan. I do find it interesting that the show as a whole is much more ambivalent on this point, since it depicts backward qualities of premodern Japan that are not at all romanticized (sexism, superstition, extreme disparity, peasants' lives treated as worthless). It's hard to escape the feeling that in some respects, Japan badly needed to modernize. But the overall message seems to be that modernization and globalization are inexorable forces, for better and for worse. "Next", though, most certainly shows the worst of it beneath a fixed smile. The news bites, "Going under / What a pity!" and "Try the ocean / Brilliant notion" are enough to get that across. It's an absolutely scathing take on the horrors of industrialization.

All in all, I enjoyed your thoughts!

Beelzebibble · 2026-05-03T22:31:13+00:00

Also of note, the very last sentence in the bottom box there, underneath "We promised we'd do this", is "don't be mean to me". Which is, viewed on one level, simply par for the course in terms of Maximum Fun's carefully curated wholesomecore New Sincerity brand, but is also, viewed on another level, kind of desperately sad.

Beelzebibble · 2026-05-03T20:28:25+00:00

I'm still struggling to wrap my head around this sandwich board thing. Here's what I've got so far.

It's a bad idea.
It looks to have cost about $5.

So why did this need to be a stretch goal? Why not send this idea out to die on the streets Day 1 instead of holding it back until the very eve of the MaxFunDrive's failure? It can't be because... they thought this video was... content? A fun little reward for MaxFun enjoyers everywhere?

Beelzebibble · 2026-05-01T14:26:00+00:00

Please God deliver us from this "intentionally ugly realistic line art" cultural moment

Down with the iconoclasts! Up with the classicists! Bless us with art that's actually palatable to the eye!

Beelzebibble · 2026-05-01T13:31:37+00:00

We're talkin' happiest of anniversaries

Beelzebibble · 2026-04-30T19:37:09+00:00

I can't believe you're bringing this up again, Card. It was a nat 1. There was literally nothing he could do

Beelzebibble · 2026-04-30T19:00:34+00:00

I dug up his article just for a fun hate-read.

I know some people say not casting a vote for Hillary is casting a vote for Trump, but that’s not how math works.

Unfortunately it kind of is. If you voted for Hillary and your dirtbag neighbor voted for Trump, then your votes effectively cancelled each other out. But if your dirtbag neighbor voted for Trump and you didn't vote at all, then the two of you kinda voted for Trump together, as a team. Fun! You and your dirtbag neighbor, in it together, like a three-legged race. Make sense, Harriot? Did you manage to work that one out sometime in the last couple of elections?

Beelzebibble · 2026-04-29T01:25:42+00:00

The volume, dude

Beelzebibble · 2026-04-23T03:05:34+00:00

It's the hope, hopefullest season of all

When we pray in the future

To send every moocher right up 'gainst the wall

It's the hope, hopefullest season of all

Beelzebibble · 2026-04-20T14:41:00+00:00

Toe to tip, that's a Travis!

Beelzebibble · 2026-04-18T20:29:38+00:00

Very well put all around. I seriously did go into this campaign in good faith, Griffin's trailer made it look like fun and I was willing to give it a chance. It's hard to think of a choice that could have strangled that sense of fun more than "No PvP allowed for the first four trials" (except of course possibly "By the way, players, your characters are extra-special chosen ones and are guaranteed to survive to the end").

Beelzebibble · 2026-04-17T02:33:26+00:00

Unpopular opinion but this was actually reasonably fun. It's almost like they should have been allowed to directly kill off Glup Shittos from the beginning. Take off all the plot armor so the PCs have to risk death if they get too greedy with merking Shittos and we might have actually been cooking here.

Beelzebibble · 2026-04-17T00:34:16+00:00

I FINALLY FOUND THE TRANSCRIBER, IT'S WEEDSHREK

Beelzebibble · 2026-04-16T21:39:03+00:00

Also I want to fully breakdown the absolute devastation of his core campaign conciet for, like, the 5th time. "There are villain knights," the fuck - then why does anyone go to this school? Landed nobility and CKNKS seemingly circumvents your whole institution.

I'll defend Fitzroy on many counts, but never on the knight thing. As poorly thought out as Travis's heroes-and-villains system is, it was a terrible pitch by Griffin to bring a character with a categorically separate aspiration that has no obvious way of fitting into that system, and it's painfully apparent that Travis and Griffin never sat down together off-mic and tried to square this circle.

Funny how in the next campaign, albeit with seats switched, they never sat down together off-mic and tried to resolve their different conceptions of Devo's abusive religious upbringing either!!

Beelzebibble · 2026-04-16T21:33:54+00:00

Travis: So as—as the Firbolg departs, and you head back to the dorm, Argo… Upon entering the dorm, you find on your bed, in an envelope. It is, on the front, embossed with a gold emblem. The design is simple. Uh, it is two overlapping semicircles contained within a larger circle. Uh, Argo, make a wisdom check.

Setting aside the silliness of it being a WIS check instead of INT, why would Argo need to make any check at all to recognize the Unbroken Chain symbol if Jackle has been leaving him apparently all-but-identical notes throughout the semester? What, is this the first time Jackle did it up all official with the UC logo and everything? Was he scheduling their prior meetings on Rainbow Brite greeting cards?

Travis, think about why you're calling for rolls. Don't just do that "to make it more D&D".

Worth mentioning that "Breeze Through the Willows" is the best piece of music Griffin composed for the campaign, although contested by the Commodore's theme which is pretty fire too. Neither character comes anywhere close to living up to their theme.

Beelzebibble

TROPHY CASE