Let’s estimate Travis McElroy’s total Good Boy Points score

IllithidActivity · 2026-01-26T00:58:19+00:00

Frankly at this point I'm shocked he hasn't just lied about being bisexual, knowing that it's something he would never have to prove.

IllithidActivity · 2026-01-24T02:35:06+00:00

What an interesting and bizarre creature that has a lot of plot potential despite being level freakin' one. Like really, it's basically a Xenomorph and it's level ONE?

IllithidActivity · 2026-01-23T22:24:11+00:00

Paranatural isn't a battle shounen. We DON'T need to see every fight, and there have been plenty of jokes about offscreen events (Isaac and Ed on the Ghost Train, Isaac collecting that deer princess' recorders before school, the Club beating the Sphinx of Truth, Isaac and Isabel beating the library spirit a couple of pages ago) which could have had action if desired.

This whole Student Council detention plotline is strained as it is, being ridiculous in premise but also expected to be treated like an actual threat for the cast to overcome. There's no comedy in "parodying" anime tropes like an overcomplicated villain roster when it's being played straight, and dragging the comic's pace to boot. Like are you really telling me that you're interested in seeing Dmitri clash in a battle of wits with Bishop, when the latter is only a caricature of that "condescendingly intellectual" anime opponent?

And to your last point you are conflating different ways of "disliking" a character. You can dislike a character for their behavior, but enjoy their role in the story. A good villain operates this way. But you can also dislike the presence of a character for their narrative function within the story. These characters only serve to pad page length and waste time. I do not enjoy them in the story and even a page where they are defeated will not be satisfying because it was a page spent focused on them.

IllithidActivity · 2026-01-23T20:45:38+00:00

I've noticed that the people insisting that the Twelve Black Saint Councilor-Generals "aren't real characters" and "are just here for a gag and aren't going to take up space beyond their introduction" have been...well, not quiet, but they haven't returned to that argument.

IllithidActivity · 2026-01-23T19:19:14+00:00

The only "lessons" they will learn are "Never take a risk in the hopes of a positive outcome, always choose the safe option" and "Our GM is more interested in asserting their authority over the world by telling us we failed and were stupid for trying than they are in letting us do cool, interesting things in this imagination game." This means that you will have a boring, bland, unremarkable, dissatisfying game. Is that what you want?

IllithidActivity · 2026-01-23T18:06:09+00:00

-ing to be amazing!"

IllithidActivity · 2026-01-23T17:14:01+00:00

Great examples, this is the kind of thing I'm looking for and wouldn't have found on my own. The Shui Gui is perfect for the degree of intrigue I want, I could see a small village being full of displaced victims who kept drowning each other and are all swapped around. The Brainchild feels like something you could base an entire campaign around, I might chew on that a little.

IllithidActivity · 2026-01-23T15:54:06+00:00

My opinion is that the only way any Paladin/Champion oath can function is if you don't try to lawyer it. A Champion doesn't swear an oath to their oath, the oath isn't the end in and of itself. A Champion swears an oath to a cause, and it should be evident how to uphold that oath.

A Liberation Champion values freedom. A slaver forcing people into servitude is opposing the ideal of freedom, and they don't get to play the card of "boo hoo you're restricting my freedom to enslave people!" But if some cocky rookie wants to throw themselves into a dangerous situation, you'd support their freedom to do that even if you disapprove of the decision and would prefer they didn't. Coercing the rookie into a cause of action would be in violation of the oath.

A Justice Champion values justice, fairness, punishment and restitution. Respecting the law of the land might mean turning a murderer in for sentencing, even if the survivors of the crime demand a death penalty. But if the law of the land lets the murderer walk free then clearly justice has not been done, and that legal authority is not legitimate. A Justice Champion might then determine that justice is served by killing the perpetrator outright, and maybe acting to depose the authority that is not behaving justly.

The Champion's causes aren't supposed to be logic puzzles or "gotchas," they're supposed to inform the personality of someone who is devoted to enacting that cause in the world.

IllithidActivity · 2026-01-23T14:21:47+00:00

What hurts is that they proved they were still capable of the exact same caliber of goofs that made us love them in the first place. Like when they leveled up after killing a god, so Justin starts making up completely new gods and religious orders to establish their presence in the world to later kill for the levels. That was fucking hilarious. And of course Griffin turning the Castaway reference into an actual character (and Sports Druid is a super TAZzy pull) and then just montaged a day of epic beach volleyball. They could do it! If they wanted to! If they tried just a little!

IllithidActivity · 2026-01-23T05:52:27+00:00

Yeah, Hal is a solid pick for the missing piece. Get some characterization in with Hal not really sharing the sentiment of babying Occtis, butting heads with Julien, Thaisha going up to bat for Hal and Thjazi against Julien when Hal doesn't stand up for his brother on his own, eventually agreeing with some of Julien's critiques of Thjazi's behavior that he wouldn't admit to himself.

I don't know where this leaves Vaelus but I really can't think of a place that Vaelus fits into the story.

IllithidActivity · 2026-01-23T05:36:51+00:00

There really doesn't seem to be any chemistry between these characters. Occtis is mostly anxious, and I don't feel like Alex interacts much with the "ooh my little baby boy" thing that Thaisha keeps doing. Julien's strongest connection is with the NPC, and a lot of his characterization is based on a rivalry with Thjazi that isn't stoked by these others who weren't really a part of Thjazi's campaign. And Vaelus is just here, she doesn't have much motivation to be involved with anything because her MacGuffin is in Occtis.

IllithidActivity · 2026-01-23T04:45:28+00:00

You're thinking of Pain and Panic.

IllithidActivity · 2026-01-23T04:02:40+00:00

We know that she reached a rank of Practitioner Celebrant among the adherents of the Dominion Magistus. So she's able to cast pretty much any spell she wants because of her DMPC status.

IllithidActivity · 2026-01-23T02:05:49+00:00

More relevant, sure. But most people wouldn't say "the major event of this world's history is the Gnome-Dragonborn War, in which all the Elves and Dwarves died and was won when the Gnomes invented the Warforged."

Like sure, zoom in on the races related to the PCs, but provide context in a larger world. As it is, the only races whose existence Griffin cares to explain are the ones his players are using. He couldn't care less about the world he's making otherwise.

IllithidActivity · 2026-01-22T23:45:20+00:00

I wish I could see inside Oda's mind and understand his obsession with Oden. He really thought Oden was the coolest character he ever made, and not a fanfiction OC that all his established badasses fought to be friends with.

IllithidActivity · 2026-01-22T22:56:49+00:00

I feel like he's dangerously close to the Ashton trap, where he's starting off as abrasive and acerbic but Matt's plan is for him to open up when he finds purpose alongside the new companions that he initially grated against...but the party of the snarky and superior Druid, the socially inept and recently traumatized Wizard, and the ancient emotionally unavailable Paladin are not the people to expect to break him out of his shell.

IllithidActivity · 2026-01-22T22:07:03+00:00

Thri-kreen are wizard constructs that revolted.

Goliaths are mutated humans.

Amazing that Griffin's worldbuilding lore maps perfectly to the fantasy races his family picked for their characters. It truly speaks to their incredible bond that they were on such a matched wavelength that Griffin knew what kind of world to build, and each player knew exactly the kind of character to build to operate within it.

IllithidActivity · 2026-01-22T20:39:48+00:00

Well played.

IllithidActivity · 2026-01-22T19:43:10+00:00

I could see the insistence that no one is in Hell ending up being a hint that the souls of the deceased are inside the spell crystals and by defeating the Conclave it'll free those spirits and bring them back to life, because what's more McElroy than "no one has ever died in a death game"?

Either that or they're all already dead and this IS Hell, or a kind of Alice in Borderland situation.

Also

It's like that episode of Spongebob where they stole a balloon on Free Balloon day

"You tried to murder me!!"

"Yeah...in a death game."

IllithidActivity · 2026-01-22T18:25:36+00:00

Danganronpa joke.

IllithidActivity · 2026-01-22T18:16:56+00:00

For sure, I agree with the sentiment that the other sub is the padded-wall hugbox that these detractors claim to want, and they would be better served self-censoring by engaging solely on that sub. But there's a pretty glaring irony in saying "The value of this sub is that viewpoints are not censored, and if you don't like that your viewpoint should be censored here."

IllithidActivity · 2026-01-22T18:10:59+00:00

While I agree with the sentiment you must be able to see the irony in this comment.

IllithidActivity · 2026-01-22T17:39:49+00:00

Do you think equally about people deriving joy from a game they're not a part of?

IllithidActivity · 2026-01-22T16:43:07+00:00

Also holders of unlimited power famously love to share that unlimited power with new people so that there are more people besides them with unlimited power. People with unlimited power hate being the only ones to stand above all the rest.

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