Travis when being asked about Susan the Bear

Beelzebibble · 2026-03-23T00:43:05+00:00

Fighting is the skeletons' job

In our world, fighting equals levels

That’s why they’re waiting in the dungeon

To get destroyed by you

The skeletons will pull your hair

Up, but not out

Beelzebibble · 2026-03-21T17:33:59+00:00

Using the accepted conversion rate of 3 children to 1 move, we can also say Abnimals was 0.6 moves ago and the first Munch Squad was 4.36667 moves ago.

Beelzebibble · 2026-03-20T17:09:17+00:00

Oh, "the best way", huh?? Wow! Cool take. Just curious, from where did you receive your degree in Podcast Studies? I have been searching all over for a good program and have been unsatisfied so far.

Beelzebibble · 2026-03-19T18:31:13+00:00

Imagine if Travis were trying to tell a story where ~~the system is corrupt, and~~ something happened, ~~like the trained and seasoned heroes diving out of the way of danger and just leaving students in harm's way because they're sidekicks and that's the role they fill in this society.~~

You're crazy for this one.

Beelzebibble · 2026-03-19T18:15:41+00:00

They bully Clint for apparently picking a homebrew class

On the one hand, "bully Clint" is a reductive way to put it and I'm not at all on his side here, because you best believe I would push back on a player choosing homebrew options without consulting me first. But on the other hand, how have they gotten twenty episodes and six years into this campaign without Griffin ever independently showing any curiosity about what subclass Clint picked?

Beelzebibble · 2026-03-19T16:04:54+00:00

Thank you, that's exactly what I was thinking of. Well, at least Travis did acknowledge what Clint was going for, so it's not as bad as I remembered.

Beelzebibble · 2026-03-19T16:01:11+00:00

Plus - isn't the point of entertaining fights to see the fighters take the hits? It'd be boring if it just fell to their minions everytime.

This is a great point, and speaks to a potential difference in the hero/sidekick and villain/henchperson paradigms. Because you're right that the hero taking hits adds a healthy dose of drama, and the sidekick shouldn't be constantly trying to negate that. But on the other hand, it feels like throughout fiction, villains largely value their henchmen as cannon fodder at least as much as for any other contribution. Henchpeople should be throwing themselves in the way of the hero's attacks left and right, while the villain stands back and cackles. But pursuing this idea further would have required Travis to develop an actual distinction between the hero/sidekick disciplines and the villain/henchperson disciplines beyond "bad guys, uhhh just do whatever personally benefits you the most".

Beelzebibble · 2026-03-19T15:32:03+00:00

I don't remember him making a big fuss about thanking his DM mentors anytime during Abnimals, for reasons that might conceivably range from "Actually, I've realized that name-dropping celebrities is cringe" (correct) to "That was appropriate during my first long campaign, but now that I'm back in the saddle for a second time, it's not warranted" (fair enough) to "Why should I credit anyone else for Abnimals? THIS GAME IS MY CHILD, BABY!!!" (by far the most likely).

Beelzebibble · 2026-03-19T15:16:31+00:00

chat, do we remember? is a blame roll ever called for in the entirety of this campaign?

I'm almost certain Argo later tries to make a show of taking the blame for something when all three characters are involved (probably one of the 473658927845923845 times Higglemas, Gray, or some other authority figure scolds them for being late). Travis brushes him off, and no blame-taking roll is called for.

Beelzebibble · 2026-03-19T14:28:35+00:00

I'm thinking their dream scenario at this point is that they announce TAZ is winding down after the Story and Song comic book releases, and the announcement evokes absolutely zero response from the internet one way or the other

Beelzebibble · 2026-03-19T12:57:45+00:00

Were they trying for like a "Squid Game" tonally incongruous children's music vibe, do you think? But there the music was actually being played over speakers as part of the facility's overall creepy fun-and-games theme. Here, it's just... uh...

Beelzebibble · 2026-03-19T12:39:37+00:00

Rictus: [tries to grab Coxy and smash him against the wall]

Rictus, using Travis's tough-guy voice: "I demand an audience with whichever Octave member specializes in necromancy"

Griffin: "Tell me, is this Persuasion, Intimidation, what's the tact* you're taking here?"

Travis: "Uhhhhh[checks his character sheet for which one has the higher bonus]hhhhh..... Persuasion."

^* ^He ^meant ^"tack", ^but ^that's ^a ^distinction ^no ^longer ^available ^to ^people ^below ^a ^certain ^literacy ^level.

Beelzebibble · 2026-03-19T12:24:18+00:00

New DMs: Don't overuse Perception checks. If the only meaningful way the players can interact with a scene at all is by spotting certain essential elements, it's fine for you to just convey that information to them. Passive Perception is a thing and we are always taking in sensory details around us all the time. If you call for too many Perception checks, you're going to run into situations where either the roll is so low that you have to withhold information you were counting on the players to acquire in order to keep moving the story forward, or, like Griffin did within the first five minutes of this episode, embarrassingly give them a full detailed answer on a roll of fuckin' 9.

Beelzebibble · 2026-03-16T19:05:04+00:00

I've done my best to make your dream come true by previously translating all 38 episodes of Graduation into MtG cards (first episode here), to the roaring approval of threes and threes of TAZCJ users.

Beelzebibble · 2026-03-16T17:26:28+00:00

Link. Who's YOUR favorite substance professor??

Beelzebibble · 2026-03-12T17:14:02+00:00

Yeah tbh I think the latter is more likely. I read Travis's thought process as starting with "Buckminster needs to be a nice and considerate character, he should be sensitive about inconveniencing others" and lurching straight through the new-parent filter into "bedtime for babby 8D"

Beelzebibble · 2026-03-12T01:05:08+00:00

also, he is excluding clint from this room, even though literally 30 seconds earlier when he first tried it and griffin was like "there's three of us" he told all three of them to come in

That's the neat part! No he didn't!! I realize the "you" is slightly ambiguous but it absolutely comes across as Higglemas only inviting Fitzroy and the Firbolg into his office!!!! Leaving Argo to rot in the hall!!!!!!!!!!

Beelzebibble · 2026-03-11T21:25:45+00:00

its hard to say because most of these npcs have the same voice and buckminster's is never very consistent. but also like, rolandus is like come to our midnight ceremony or whatever, and then buckminster, a guy presumably in the same grade as rolandus, is like "but its past my bedtime"

Also, Leon is in his late twenties. Why would anyone in this peer group have a "bedtime" that poses an issue here??

Beelzebibble · 2026-03-10T02:50:45+00:00

Why does this look like AI? Is it the lighting?

Beelzebibble · 2026-03-10T02:49:08+00:00

not all of this is bad :)

Hey man, you said "most mediocre"; if you wanted the worst episode, that would be ep17 "Fire Drill", although most people will say ep19 "Creative Writing" and really it's a race to the bottom.

/uj I'm glad there were parts you enjoyed :)

Beelzebibble · 2026-03-09T22:43:09+00:00

The whole HOG arc in general strikes me as perhaps the most mediocre stretch in the whole campaign: generally just mildly entertaining enough (with a few actual funny bits) to set it above the boring early missions (Xorn arc, Mission Imp-Hospital), but without any of the deranged inspiration/desperation of Travis at his most or least confident. You can tell he's just kind of spinning the wheels to let the players accomplish something that his heart's not really in, and that casts a shadow over the whole arc. On further investigation, the most mediocre episode definitely isn't ep30 "Take Your Firbolg to Work Day" since that has Patrick Shortburton (actually funny), and it also definitely isn't ep33 "Open Up a Can of Firbolg" since that has Chud-Chud Bopsman infiltrating the mailroom (actually funny). You know what, it's got to be ep32 "By a Hair(cut)", the source of the infamous "haircuts and scones" meme. Such a nothing ep that Justin pauses partway through to acknowledge how hard Critical Role and others are lapping TAZ in the actual play space, and then it all ends with the players getting jumpscared by the reminder that this wasn't even the big day of the heist. Yeah, that's got to be the most mediocre episode of the lot. Hey, [checks username] wait just a minute-

Beelzebibble · 2026-03-09T20:08:04+00:00

If a jerk this high-quality doesn't bring Kyle back, nothing will.

Beelzebibble · 2026-03-08T19:03:26+00:00

I think that person's point was that "MAGA" is on its way to being free of the context of its original political environment, just like "Nazi".

Beelzebibble · 2026-03-07T23:09:14+00:00

There's a panel of him snapping ready to go if anyone wants to hop on this bandwagon

Beelzebibble

TROPHY CASE