If anyone is looking for a more in depth critique of this, IAmMyBrain did a really good video on it.

@elhoteldeloserrantes5056

8 ай бұрын

and is a great video

@NuclearNoxi

7 ай бұрын

Sarah Z has a good video too.

@Lucifersfursona

6 ай бұрын

That’s such a comfort video, it’s well paced and hilarious- and he addresses the anti indigenous racism in TAZ Graduation that made me drop the McElroys as content creators I follow. Genuinely unforgivable. Can’t even enjoy monster factory anymore because after talking to some of the most skilled and ethical DMs in contemporary history, Travis said all aboard the me and my white babies train

I think the first mistake, when it comes to NPCs, was creating characters to fill the world, instead of creating characters to serve a story role. TTRPGs are, at their heart, a kind of storytelling, and characters in stories are supposed to advance the story in some way. They don't need to exist to advance the plot, necessarily, but they should all help your players to understand your world and the kind of story you are trying to tell. NPCs can advance the story by conveying important information your players need to progress. They can communicate certain useful lore, like details on the history or politics of your setting. They can establish the tone of the game through their words and actions. They can even represent the underlying themes of the story, getting players to think about the Big Ideas. But they should absolutely *never* be there just to fill space, because people will notice it and they will hate it.

Railroading happens to every campaign at some point. But the least excusable railroading Travis did in this campaign was trying to railroad an ace PC into a romantic relationship with an NPC despite him never expressing interest in her.

The bit about villains and unlikeable NPCs struck a chord with me, because it relates to one of my personal pet peeves in modern fiction: every single villain has to be "misunderstood" or "redeemable". I get it, morality isn't black and white, but more often than not, villain redemption arcs are handled in terribly hamfisted ways that actively try to undermine whatever atrocities they commit and generally insult the audience's intelligence. Not only that, but overplaying the villain redemption angle cheapens the value of redemption. Redemption is a rare and special thing, something that is earned, not given. Not every villain can be Prince Zuko, not every villain can be the Golden Guard. And they don't have to be. Give me more Jafar, give me more DIO. Give me more unrepentant bastards who are oh-so-satisfying to see outwitted and defeated. Because all the hammy, irredeemably nasty S.O.Bs running around make all those antagonists who can be redeemed all the more noteworthy.

I love hearing people talk about Graduation. I just think its fascinating how this 1 campaign helped change the perception of the McElroy brothers

@quisslequassle404

8 ай бұрын

Did it though? I think the only people I've seen meaningfully think worse of them after TAZ Graduation, or really care about it being bad, were people that already thought pretty poorly of the McElroys anyway. I don't keep up with McElroy drama though, so maybe I just missed it.

@genericname2747

8 ай бұрын

@@quisslequassle404 They have a very parasocial fanbase. A bad campaign felt like a personal slight against some people. And also, it just made people less invested in their next campaign.

I appreciate your relatively positive approach to this

"The bad guy you gotta defeat." Yeah! Agreed. Sometimes you just need someone to throw yourself at and burn that candle like it's your birthday!

On the matter of the NPC issue, it's the Magic School bus. There was initially in the books, 20 kids, but the cartoon cut it down to 8 kids: Arnold, Carlos, Dorothy Ann, Keesha, Ralphie, Tim, Wanda and Phoebe. It would have been crammed with unnecessary characters. So if you are doing a campaign in a magical school setting, probably limiting the NPCs to probably 6-8 in a classroom might be best. Will keep the control over the NPCs and backgrounds consistent, and under control.

3:29 I actually use that tactic of "start at the end and move backwards" quite a bit. It's what helps me get my major set pieces in a row, and makes the spine of the campaign.

*hears airship* *'Nam flashbacks ensue*

Glad you decoded to do this video. There is so much to learn and you took a very positive approach.

TAZ Graduation was the first dnd podcast I listened to and one of my first introductions to dnd itself so I never recognized its shortfalls before. It’s interesting how I can now recognize what went wrong in the campaign when I listen to your video and look back at my memories of it. Graduation inspired a lot of character concepts I have today and is quite close to my heart and your input on it hasn’t changed that, but it does make me more appreciative of the experience I’ve gained in dnd since then haha

I’m glad my first DMing experience wasn’t public 😂 my group still makes inside jokes about mistakes I made

I may be missing the point as I haven't seen much of the show but I feel a big world-shaking plot seems a bit out of place as part of a school-for-sidekicks setting unless the campaign has been running for years. This sounds like something where starting and aiming smaller would be to the game's benefit. On the NPC issue: Having a big list of npcs can be helpful, but only make a big focus on them if they're the ones the players want or need to interact with. Seeing which ones the players like and then building them up more works much better than assuming the players are going to find a particular character likeable. If an npc is going to be some sort of hardcore badass who saves the PCs at some stage, it's important to a) build up their likability before their big scene and b) make sure the players get a victory of their own not long before or after so it doesn't feel like the npc is stealing the show. With enemies I find a few sympathetic ones can add depth to the setting and give players a chance for some cool rp moments, but players and audiences still enjoy the catharsis of beating down an utter scumbag and some folks are just bad people. A good campaign requires a bit of both. In my first 5.0 game I included a faction who started out as understandable but still enemies (a league of underdark monsters with class-levels who felt things like fiend-religions and elder brains were holding their society back, but were willing to do shady stuff in the name of "progress"), who were initially going to be a sidequest boss, but the players managed to encourage them to join the heroes' side. The same campaign's final big bad had a scheme that one player summed up as "building a house out of everyone's nightmares so that he could transform into a demi-god, kill everyone who said mean things about him and become besties with Tiamat all because daddy gave something he wanted to his brother", and the PCs were portrayed as totally justified in just knocking the hell out of him.

Would love a video about combat.

Have a great day Crispy!

Yayyy crispy posted

As far as the issue of NPCs in combat goes, the solution I adopted for the main game I DM is that I'm not going to control any of the NPC allies in combat. I will RP them with the players, but in combat one of the players will control their actions. The ones that will regularly engage in combat alongside the player characters are also at a lower power level than the PCs (same character level but lowered stats) to make sure they won't be outshining the PCs.

i love to try guessing which comment suggestion will be at the end

As someone who came here from Reddit without any knowledge of your content beforehand, I thought this was a great video. Fair and even-handed, with concrete actionable criticism, novel points, and information that all GMs could use. I'd also be interested to hear your perspective on TAZ Ethersea, which I found to be much more disappointing and which strongly contributed to my Jerkerfication (bingus will prevail). There's a particular key story beat that IMO wrecks a lot of the campaign and which has important lessons for GMs contained within it.

Crispyyyy!!

Graduating

Adventure Zone season 1 (Balance) was actually what got me and my Dad into D&D in the first place, I liked Season 2 (though it wasn't as good as Season 1) but I honestly stopped listening during this one because I found it sort of boring

Honestly, big props to anyone who streams their games. I don’t think I could handle my games being under this level of scrutiny.

Welp I wasn’t expecting this would happen after watching a bunch of MBMBAM clips…I’m definitely a wizard…a lame wizard but a wizard nonetheless. Also yeah, did not like Graduation. Especially the ending. That said I had JUST finished Fantasy High and TAZ Dust while also starting The Unexpectables so it was hard not to compare everything.

@benjaminotalora363

8 ай бұрын

I hope you like unexpectables! Their first campaign is pretty fun

@DwarfDaddy

8 ай бұрын

@@benjaminotalora363 I was enjoying it. Sorta dropped off it after getting kinda tired of live play podcasts.

I only ever watched Balance (and loved it) but the thing to remember about this is, it was a new DM running his first campaign, in front of a huge audience. Yeah, he's going to screw up and make mistakes. We ALL did that on our first campaign and if we're being honest we ALL still do.

@FUSIONJAZZMAN420

6 ай бұрын

It was also fucking Travis McElroy though.

lol literally had a PBP game like you said around 6 min. DM clearly didn't know where the campaign would go but BY GOD was it the opposite of whatever the players tried to do.

Oh lawd I’m scared to listen to this one! I like the McElroys and I enjoy TAZ, though I haven’t listened to all the story arcs and didn’t finish Graduation for some reason or another. I’ll listen to this later when I’m not working, but I hope you weren’t too harsh, Crispy 😂

Can we get the video link for dm pc video from Matt C. You mentioned?

@CrispysTavern

8 ай бұрын

Just added! Knew I would forget.

The thing that bothered me the most about Graduation was this feeling I had that Travis was trying to force things that Balance earned -- specifically character/NPC relationships. LGBTQ+ relationships were super popular in Balance? Then Graduation has LGBTQ couples in the very first scenes! Look at them! Love them! Instantly with no character development or work put in! It felt like Travis wanted the phenomenon that happened with fans around Lup or Kravitz without putting in the effort to make them actual characters. (IMO he did the same thing with his PC in Amnesty -- the first person he saw of the correct gender was now his character's True Love For Ever. For no reason.)

@credendovides20

7 ай бұрын

I agree. It felt like he was trying to use the tropes that worked... And yet pushing all of them together in a confused mix. But to be fair it is weird to claim that LGBTQ+ couples should earn to be there by being justified with previous development. Background straight relationships exist everywhere without ever the need to justify them. They simply exist.That's it. As gay couples should. It's not weird that they appear in the first scenes. And they don't need extra work than any other passive NPC should have.

What happened to TAZ? Have they stopped making it? Last thing I heard is that Earthsea ended last year.

@zhazhagab0r

7 ай бұрын

They are playing Blades in the Dark now with Justin GMing. I've only listened to the first episode.

Sounds like good idea on paper but poor in execution

is the grinch his first name or his species name

@thegrongler

8 ай бұрын

First name. The live-action Grinch movie suggests that he's just a weird Who. However, The Grinch Grinches the Cat in the Hat shows us his mother, who is green and furry like him. But, there's no confirmation that she isn't a Who.

Taz balance introduced me to D&D as a whole and it was absolutely amazing. If I was following that up I'd probably make a ton of mistakes too.

Posted 1 min ago; no views? Damn, youtube knows what kind of video to recommend...

@MrWD-tp7oc

8 ай бұрын

Just got to give it a bit. Though it does suck that crispy doesn’t get more views. Dude is definitely among the best in the DnD community

I like this take. I've always been reticent to siding with previous critiques of tazg, because they felt too harshly pointed at Travis as a person, or at the show for trying aomething different (which often involved the fact it was Travis in the gm chair). And the high levels of Travis vitriol repels me from most takes. That's why I like this one. It takes his mistakes to task without adding on to the dogpile of line-treading anti-travis takes. A lot of people forget that he's treating narcissistic personality disorder. A lot more hear that and think it makes him an irredeemably bad person by virtue of existing. He tried. That's why despite agreeing it was not a good season, I still enjoyed listening to it. You didn't do any of that, so I respect your take.

Hello there

@junkbotbionicle6217

8 ай бұрын

General Kenobi

@CrispysTavern

8 ай бұрын

General Kenobi

@Rapture-nv5vj

8 ай бұрын

​@@junkbotbionicle6217You are, a bold one

@MiniMIniMorkGaming

8 ай бұрын

@@CrispysTavern You are a bold one

@junkbotbionicle6217

8 ай бұрын

@@CrispysTavern ha

Travis was a first time DM y'all, cut him some slack. As a relatively new DM myself he did a phenomenal job starting off. He did much better than most first time DM’s. He tried so hard and he got so much better as it progressed. It wasn’t my favorite season by far but I really appreciate the effort he put in.

@CrazyQuilman157

26 күн бұрын

Travis had DMed TAZ:Nights, a MaxFunDrive exclusive campaign, prior to both Graduation and the one small arc for Dust.

Counterpoint!!!! Dad McElroy is in TAZ: Graduation, which makes it good.

Never got into The Adventure Zone, but the four McElroy's were the majority of the player cast for Dimension 20: Tiny Heist and they all seemed likable, capable and quick witted enough.

It should be said though that Graduation wasn't... THAT bad all things considered. It is a 6/10 in a field where a 8/10 is the average. If anything I think what made people more vocal was that this was CLOSE to being great.

Personally I liked TAZ G and the different DM style compared to Griffin. I thought that Travis did a great job making character decisions matter session to session and taking into account what they did as they went along. The general consensus seems to be that it wasnt great to listen to, but it was the kind of game that I would have wanted to play in

Speaking as someone who returned to D&D 5e because of TAZ, I have some thoughts in Travis' defence. I I think there are valid criticisms here and there are certainly things to learn from Graduation about what not to do as a DM. Having said that, it's worth remembering the origins of Graduation and TAZ in general. The first ever TAZ Campaign, Balance, came as a spin-off from the McElroy's purely comedic advice podcast and the focus was on both comedy and family (making jokes, being familiar with each other and essentially building a family brand). They didn't know the rules, they didn't take it seriously and it didn't matter. Balance was amazing but it was NOT D&D in its usual form. To say it was on rails is not restrictive enough. It was essentially a story that Griffin was telling his family and they were allowed to make jokes as they went. From there, they moved different campaigns in different systems but Graduation was a) the first time they returned to D&D and b) the first time Travis ran an entire campaign himself. Now is Griffin a better story teller than Travis? Potentially, but I would argue that they are just different. Travis has always rubbed fans of the Mcelroys up the wrong way more then his brothers do and it's not always his fault. Either way, neither Travis, Griffin or Justin have ever sold themselves as "master DM's". They make an adventure for the rest of their family. So to take notes on how their campaigns wouldn't work for your own game is totally fine but to criticise every DMing mistake is a little unfair. They're not making their adventures for you to play through, they're making them for you to listen to. There are hundreds of D&D shows out there, I have listened to/watched many of them and there are really only a very small number who manage to correctly balance rules, RP, entertainment value and story. Those shows (shows like Crit Role and Dimension 20) have a massive following and they also get criticism, all the time. Why is this backlash not given to shows like Dungeons and Daddies, or Nadpod? Or maybe it is...and if it is, I think that is also unfair. My point is that a very small percentage of high quality shows set a very high standard and then, when a show with a similar size fanbase (the Mcelroy fanbase is massive, thanks to MBMBaM and their other podcasts) comes along with a lower level of quality, the fans fall prey to that demon you OFTEN mention on your channel, Crispy, the parasocial relationship. The fans think they have a right to shout criticism and generally say pretty unkind things about four men who they have absolutely no relationship with apart from listening to them crack jokes on a podcast. Is Graduation without its problems? No, absolutely not. Is it worthy being publicly dragged through the mud in the way it has by a fanbase who, unfairly feel a sense of ownership and entitlement to this show? No I don't think so... I don't say this as a criticism of you Crispy (love your channel btw), merely to give the other side of the story from my point of view. I am also falling victim to dreaded parasocial relationship and feel a need to defend the four voices that were responsible for me falling in love with D&D 5e and were my gateway into TTRPGs as an adult.

Someone needs to tell the Macelorys that just because you can do something doesn't mean you should. I listen to a lot of podcasts and have reached peak Macelroy saturation. They're everywhere and seem to have come out of the womb with a free podcast nothing I've heard from them has ever blown my mind. Crispy's critique here could easily be applied to almost any Macelroy project. They come up with a concept and jump straight in without any plans for where it's going to go. In some cases this works out for them, and good for them for being go-getters, but I find a lot of their work suffers a similar lack of focus. I have no problem with them in general, its just that they're everywhere like a pop song on the radio and they could stand to slow down and breathe once in a while.

@Ironstein13

8 ай бұрын

Given that their dad Clint was a radio host and their starting podcast mbmbam is literally directionless chatter and jokes, it makes sense that a lot of their products have that "unfocused" quality you mentioned. But it's not necessarily a bad thing, and many people enjoy listening to it. Podcasting is their full time job, so they are going to pump out new ones if they can. Sure quality is important, but if they aren't up to your standards, you don't have to listen to them 😊

@siobhanroberts2329

8 ай бұрын

@Ironstein13 Didn't know that about their Dad, but that makes sense. I tried to acknowledge that I don't have anything in particular against them as content creators and they all seem perfectly charming, and I can understand why they have so many fans. That said, I have a friendly quibble with your last sentence. Almost every hobby and interest I have has a Macelroy or two with some fingers in that pie, so even if I dont listen to the stuff they produce, they show up as guests in tons of stuff I listen to. If I could just opt out easily, I wouldn't even have commented. :) That's why I compared them to a pop song on the radio. The songs usually aren't too bad; the problem is that you hear then like 10 times a day everywhere you go.

@Ironstein13

8 ай бұрын

@@siobhanroberts2329 Oh, I understand now, and that's absolutely a fair critique. I wouldn't want the same people constantly showing up in my other podcasts either. Just out of curiosity, what other stuff have you heard them guest in? I find trying new podcasts with familiar guests a good way to expand what I'm listening to.

Genuinely as awful and enraging as the DND stuff with graduation is, like DND bones all broken and mangled and only railroad for spine... the anti indigenous racism that was so blatant it was flagged by a mostly white liberal fanbase as non negotiably bad, that fans put together fundraising for indigenous Americans with disabilities explicitly to react to the treatment of native coded characters in Graduation, publicly, and the McElroys _never_ addressed it. They still haven’t. It’s not okay and there’s no excuse for it. They don’t get to pretend they don’t know or can’t understand.

@Lucifersfursona

6 ай бұрын

The good faith you put on Travis as a dm is both completely unfounded for him, and very heartwarming and helpful for people who are not Travis

Gotta be honest dude, on the off chance ya see this... This is pretty poor quality. There's no real analysis, no real insights, no interesting perspective. You definitely didn't ever listen to the podcast and all you really had to say could be taken from a google search. Feels more like you wanted to plug MCDM's book and your own stuff.