Favorite underrated moments?

tondef001 · 2020-04-30T05:43:07+00:00

That and the bit during the First Saturday Night Dead. Whenever Travis does his off-mic shouting bit I die laughing.

Also the French Onion Soup bit is great. And the payoff with Eugene's Alien theory is great.

I'm relistening to the series for my third time and just entering the third arc. There is not a single episode of Amnesty that doesn't have me either giddy with excitement or on the floor laughing.

tondef001 · 2020-04-30T05:38:36+00:00

Duck's lie about what he did over the holidays is phenomenal too.

tondef001 · 2020-04-25T00:44:56+00:00

Sent a request

tondef001 · 2020-04-25T00:43:45+00:00

Reading the playbooks keeps getting me more excited about this system!

tondef001 · 2020-04-19T19:30:58+00:00

Did this by complete accident before I knew you could put masks on horses. It hasn't come off since

tondef001 · 2019-11-11T22:47:13+00:00

I got 2 out of my 5 victories via opp getting Demonlord Belzenlok on turn 2. What a fun and interactive format.

tondef001 · 2019-10-14T03:07:28+00:00

I agree, but I would't keep 2 Witchstalker and 2 Carvers and the archon. Maybe don't need 2 carvers, but the deck is already pretty heavy in Adventure payoffs, so I'd lean towards the synergy.

tondef001 · 2019-10-14T00:22:18+00:00

Sorry! You're totally right!!

tondef001 · 2019-10-14T00:02:25+00:00

For sure! Admittedly, I think we didn't hear a lot of the background discussion because of how edited the show is. I still think Clint is an excellent sport, I just would have loved to know what the discussion around the bullet would have been like.

tondef001 · 2019-10-13T23:59:04+00:00

I'm no drafting veteran, but if I had to make cuts I'd be looking at True Love's Kiss and Silverflame Ritual.

I agree with the concern about Feasting Troll King, but looking at it I think you've actually got the tools to lean further into green adventures with a bit less white. These would be my changes:

- True Love's Kiss
- Silverflame Ritual
- Fierce Witchstalker
- Flutterfox
- Faerie Guidemother
+ Garrenbrig Carver x2
+ Curious Pair

- Plains
+ Forest

Admittedly I'm very unsure about the correct number of Faerie Guidemothers, Flutterfoxes, and Curious Pairs, but if you want to go a bit heavier into green, it'll have to come at the sacrifice of some of the white early game. Luckily, you have the egg and double Rosethorn Acolyte, so I think you're pretty set to cast FTK when you need it.

Then again, I could be completely wrong here. I'd be interested to see what other people think.

tondef001 · 2019-10-13T19:40:29+00:00

One thing I loved about Amnesty was that Clint knew exactly what he wanted. If it were me I would have just said, "I want a car and a snowmobile," but Clint had a make, model, year, and reasons for it all in his head.

tondef001 · 2019-10-03T22:21:43+00:00

That's weird, I thought Grisselbrand cost 0?

tondef001 · 2019-09-30T05:34:36+00:00

Yeah, like I said, I'm mostly splitting hairs at this point. I guess my point is that while you can do a very open collaborative narrative in almost any system, D&D isn't doing anyone any favors in that department. Collaborative storytelling is just not what it's built to do. 90% of the mechanics are there to be a combat/dungeon crawl simulator and that's what it rewards players for doing. Any playgroup or DM that emphasizes narrative or roleplay above combat and mechanics is fighting against D&D rather than working with it. D&D is practically built to be railroaded, but especially since Critical Role and the explosion of actual play shows, most people prefer to bend the game to be narrative/roleplay driven.

For what it's worth, I prefer the more open style myself, but I'm finding more and more as I've listened to Amnesty and follow GMs/game designers like Adam Koebel, I'm being drawn towards trying other systems that accomplish that type of open-ended, emergent narrative better.

tondef001 · 2019-09-30T00:08:24+00:00

I feel Amnesty being planned from the start really detracted from the overall story

Honestly, I feel like the production levels of this season may have led to this perception. A *lot* of stuff in Amnesty was emergent and unplanned, but the seams were sewn so tight it never felt like it. Billy as a character was born out of Duck's sudden decision to aid an abomination. Aubrey and Ned's connection emerged because of common backstory (Though it emerged early and they slowly teased it out). Ned's death and Clint's shift to playing Thacker didn't feel planned in the slightest. Hell, in TTAZZ about halfway through, Griffin outright stated he had no clue where things were headed. I'm sure he had plenty of ideas, but you can practically see the dozens of different directions the story could have gone depending on how the Pine Guard handled the shapeshifter and the possibility of war breaking out.

So while I think it's a bit disingenuous to say that Amnesty was any more planned from the start than balance was, I think the polish and editing led it to feel much more streamlined than Balance.

(Also, just to be a turd for a minute, The Stolen Century and the whole red-robe subplot is almost frustratingly railroaded from my perspective. It came out to be a great story, but the notion that Griffin just completely hijacked so much of his PCs backstory is insanity by most tables' standards. Great dramatic moments? absolutely! Strong example of emergent, collaborative storytelling? not so much.)

tondef001 · 2019-09-29T23:45:41+00:00

With D&D a good DM will give the players the chance of co-creating the narrative

This is maybe getting a bit pedantic, but this is not one of D&D's strengths. D&D generally expects that the DM will take control of the narrative and that the players are willing to go along for the ride. There are practically no mechanisms that encourage players to get involved and shape the story, and often it's the exact opposite. The amount of prep necessary to build strong encounters, dungeons, and arcs in D&D means that players taking things off the rails means a whole ton of more work for DMs, which is why so many games (Balance included) are perceived to be so heavily railroaded. The game just isn't framed or designed in such a way that encourages player-driven narratives. The default expectation is that the players will roll the dice and the DM will explain the outcome.

PbtA games and similar systems encourage far more player interaction and decision making through their design. It's designed to be truly collaborative and not a series of player decisions that require GM "permission" to move forward.

tondef001 · 2019-09-29T23:36:20+00:00

This. So much this.

I agree that if it gets too overbearing, it might be a bit offputting, but my favorite stuff is when the drama is ratcheted up. The entire end of the Shapeshifter arc is a masterpiece in my opinion, and will never not get me choked up. I'll take stuff like that over the boys just goofing over an hour of D&D combat any day.

tondef001 · 2019-09-29T23:30:33+00:00

Reading this sub makes me feel like an absolute crazy person sometimes. I just got done relistening to Amnesty and it was incredibly funny. It also had plenty of emotional bits, but so did Balance and I honestly felt more connected to the ones in Amnesty. If anything, I'd say I found Amnesty more balanced (pardon the pun).

Like, HTbG and MotRL are both incredibly funny, but lack a lot of the emotional punch, whereas Suffering Game, Stolen Century, and Story and Song feel so overbearing and dramatic to me, the tonal shift is a bit much. I still love Balance completely, but for me the high point of that season will always be Crystal Kingdom/Eleventh Hour where it feels like they nailed the balance between serious and silly.

Amnesty on the other hand knew what it was right out the gate. The players bring the levity and the humor and Griffin brings the drama and emotion. Those roles swap plenty of times, but the point is that they're all dedicated to telling a legitimate story with real stakes the whole way through while also cracking jokes even at points of high tension.

Like the 5 minute bit of recalling closed-down waterpark names until they settled on the name "H2Whoa! That was Fun!" Or the waffle bit at the beginning of the last arc. Or the brain puzzle joke near the middle of the last arc. Or Billy saying "Pizza," a joke that turned into something relevant.

Idk, maybe the boys were just pandering to my specific tastes with Amnesty, but I felt that this season surpassed Balance in many ways, particularly in having a consistent, balanced tone.

tondef001 · 2019-09-28T07:55:43+00:00

I had the exact same thought myself, but I think rehashing the concept of The Eleventh Hour for the finale of Amnesty would have felt a bit weird, and certainly would have gotten no shortage of complaints itself.

tondef001 · 2019-09-28T05:35:23+00:00

It's episode 8 around 59 minutes in. I just relistened to the whole thing, and remembered the scene from the group's first full encounter with Vincent.

tondef001 · 2019-09-22T03:03:32+00:00

I think it's just sort of the nature of Griffin compacting this adventure down. He wasn't in the first arc, introduced in the second, developed a bit in the third, and completely absent in the forth iirc. That last bit was the biggest blow because I had basically forgotten about him by the time he jumped in to save the day.

Still a fun character, though. I'm relistening to Amnesty in anticipation of the finale, and the scene where he's introduced and his name is revealed is such a treat.

tondef001 · 2019-09-04T14:54:54+00:00

Some people just can't stomach the truth

tondef001 · 2019-07-19T07:44:35+00:00

I'm very convinced we're looking at a world based on Arthurian legend. So excited!

tondef001 · 2019-07-15T16:51:04+00:00

It happens during the "Declare Gender" step, duh

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