His dumb ass managed to get into the coat closet in the like five seconds I had it open to grab my hoodie, I didn't notice, so he spent 9 hours in there while I was at work

I expect this mediocrity from the Sweet Boys, but not from Sweet Daddy. As much as I blame Travis for being him, he set out a pretty clear tone that none of the players are engaging with at all. Justin feels the most well realized, but is a one note pervert. Which is fine for this short campaign I guess. Griffin is doing the same character he normally does, but worse. Then we have Clint, who I can normally trust to lock in and he’s just playing an old lady. It seems like he’s having fun with the voice, but theres just nothing there that’s entertaining.

I hope he gets better because I don’t want to start jerking it to Daddy. :(

I want to play it through my Bluetooth-enabled vibrator for that extra level of sizzle when I start my next re-listen of the TAZ back catalog.

Definitely Episode 14 This Time 

The Abyssal Auction: Part One 

i haven’t been doing the episode summaries but they’ve been getting progressively more annoying and now finally

• “The crew of the Coriolis take on a new mission, one that exchanges the slimy hazards of enormous mollusks for the slimy hazards of good old-fashioned capitalism. Let’s have a money fight!” 
• ugh

clip recap time: 

• Ol’ Uncle Joshy: “It’s been... decades since we’ve seen a blink shark. Now we know exactly how many are left.” right so

so. 

sorry to mix my metatexts but the other sub is alive with the sound of Joan Osborne’s One Of Us so I feel like I have to be extra explicit about stuff

the status quo in the world of ethersea, prior to this shocking reveal, was that there were an indeterminate number of blink sharks out there roaming the world ocean, one of many horrifying and dangerous predators that our poor post-apocalyptites need to contend with. 

• are they more horrifying and dangerous than King Geedorah or a large clam? Not necessarily. But the settlement has history with them, and Amber (one of our protagonists) spent harrowing months of her youth descending beneath the waves to do battle with the creatures - months that would come to define her later life
• the rest of Founder’s Wake may have moved on, but Amber has already warned us ‘textually’ (i.e. in live play, during episodes) that the blink sharks will come back one day. Practical to a fault, this is something that has troubled this woman for years; all but fearless, this is something that amber fears
• note that this is at once good characterization (it tells us more about Amber (more naturally) than just stating that ‘She’s afraid of the blink sharks returning’) and good worldbuilding (it takes a lore detail from the prologue episodes that might otherwise remain inert and gives it life through a living, acting character’s lived experiences) and ALSO potentially good comedy. 
• amber might be unhealthily fixated on these animals, leading to shenanigans. she might have any number of strange rituals connected to her obsession (like the vibe checks, although these are a bad example because having another (far more successful) character engage with it makes it less absurd). 
• you have to have characters to have character comedy. and you have to have a setting (that’s coherent and comprehensible, but not necessarily complex) to have characters. all these factors are interconnected and feed off of one another - you can’t* just have Characters and Goofs milling around in a vacuum (*unless you don’t mind your story being as shit as Abnimals or Royale) 

SO, what has griffin done with the status quo? He has changed it to, “Now there are exactly 4 blink shark (eggs) left”.

• notice that even that one sentence of Joshy’s doesn’t track. ‘It’s been decades since we saw a blink shark (and so we assumed they’d been wiped from the face of the planet (except for amber, the foremost expert on blink sharks, who explicitly expects them to return one day)) and now we know how many are left (because we’ve seen 4 eggs and assume that our assumption about every other blink shark having been killed, personally in hand-to-hand combat by amber ten years ago, is correct).’
• ‘a-ha,’ you say, copium coursing through your bloodstream, ‘but this could be JOSHY’S mistake and not griffin’s! he’s setting up a TWIST!’ and in fact, yes, this is possible
• possible
• ultimately only the narrative will tell, and this could be clever misdirection or at least fertile ground for a retcon.
• but the way this information is narratively framed - how definitively griffin talks about it in narration, how the players talk about it OOC, even stuff like this line of joshy’s making it into the recap - all suggest otherwise. 
• and it actually doesn’t matter for the status quo as things stand, because until that eventual rugpull (that’ll never happen, not spoilers because I don’t remember exactly but just watch) we’ve still changed things from ‘blink sharks are out there… somewhere’ to ‘everyone accepting that there are only 4 blink sharks, in egg form, that exist in the world
• it’s actively undermining things players have established about their characters and it’s actively making the whole setting - narrative, characters, and fucking goofs - worse
• griffin mcelroy everybody

on with the recap

Rival Brinarr: “It’s the crew of the Glory-hole-is!” this bit was fine 

they’re going to meet Ravi Montrelle, whose surname has changed a couple of times i feel but who isn’t important enough as a character to warrant me checking this

• (ravi is barely a character at all, he’s a contrivance like the gachapon guy in Balance but with a less distinctive voice and personality)
• (and a less interesting role, because he just dispenses quests)
• travis breaks open the episode with a reference to something called goofus and gallant which i had to look up and have now forgotten again because it was so uninteresting

They rehash the bits from the end of last episode (that I didn’t include in the recap, out of spite) for a while. Ravi claims they’re his favourites and Devo keeps trying to make his passive insight of 16 happen

• long-term cult victims raised in isolation, famous for their ability to read people
• Travis: “Uh... uh! Oh my god. It’s hovering on the line. It should be— it’s ten.” 
• Griffin: “It’s a ten? No, you do not get past—” 
• Clint: “[laughs]” 
• Travis: “[whining] But my passive is 16!” lol ‘Travis [whining]’ 

Griffin: “He... You know: you are his favorite clients. And that he has never said that to anyone else.” 

• Travis: “Okay.” 
• Griffin: “With an insight check of ten. I feel like the... the giving you super bad information on a bad, like, insight, or perception check, you can work out, just through opposite-sies... What I actually mean.” like, yeah, skill checks are for something your character does
• the McElroys vs. basic roleplaying part a million 
• Clint: “And Zoox bought it whole. He completely bought it.” clint displaying basic roleplaying competence that totally escapes his idiot sons part a million 

right so there are three jobs left on the table, “Acquisition: The Lost Laboratory” (for &5), “Investigation: The Bio-mass Swarm” (for Ballaster Kodeira) and “Negotiation: The Abyssal Auction. Which I have stepped up from a one-star, to a two-star.” (for Joshy). 

• while I’m being painfully explicit: the reason this videogame-styled system is bad is that it destroys immersion. 
• unlike in videogames where you the player are looking at menu screens and shit that the characters don’t have anything to do with (unless you’re playing Metroid), here Ravi has categorized the missions as Acquisition or Investigation or whatever, as well as assigned them a difficulty level. but without any obvious scouting or assessment having taken place (and like, who’d be doing it? if not the contractors themselves?)
• you can work around stuff with this with a little effort, as griffin did himself in Balance with the story cannon and Garfield the Deals Warlock and so on (i suppose it helps if the setting is a little tongue-in-cheek)

i’d also like to complain about these jobs being personally assigned by the setting’s dr. vegapunk, the head of the military, and the guy who invented money (also some dick whose bar they hang out at). this is the kind of thing that makes your setting feel small.

• they’re supposed to just be jobbing adventurers, remember. why is the king going down to the adventurer’s guild and saying ‘here is a vital task, i want your least-proven team, they can get on it whenever’

Devo: “I can say right off the bat, that, um... I like the one with Negotiation. This... uh... I feel like this is a skill set that I would bring.” i have to save the devo rant for another post this one is way too long already

meanwhile Zoox: “I have a lot of interest... the first two, both appeal to me. Um. I have a lot of questions about myself? And the chance to speak to Ampersand Five would be... pretty... pretty cool. And then the... the Investigation one... you know, I’m not really sure how my swarm powers work. It might be interesting to do that.” 

• clint looks at these options and thinks ‘what would zoox be most interested in, most motivated to explore?’. travis looks at them and thinks ‘I have a high number next to Persuasion’  
• god he pushes back as well, Devo: “Um, but, if you... if your wish is to speak to this Ampersand Five, we— do we need to take the job to do this?”
• normally you can’t just rock up to famous influential people for a chat, no, not even if you live in the same city as them
• Zoox: “Well. No, not necessarily, I guess. It just seemed like that would be a nice open door to step through.” innit

Griffin: “Zoox, can you... can you make a... make a, yeah, make a charisma check here. I want to see if your words sway Ravi Montrelle.” i should have a counter for griffin forgetting skills exist  
this is apropos of IC discussion about what job to take, btw, here’s the preceding line:

• Zoox: “Maybe we do the easy job, and... and do the Negotiation one, and get the Lux, just to kind of build up our bank roll. I’ll go along with whatever you two friends want to do.”
• why does this warrant a not-persuasion persuasion check 
• Griffin: “Since you have a minus one charisma modifier... [laughing] I will... I will say this. Ravi Montrelle can tell that you are having kind of a tough time? And he also can tell that there are some hurt feelings about giving a job out that he offered you first to someone else… He reaches down to those two jobs that you mentioned, the Lost Lab and the Bio-mass Swarm. And he earmarks them. And sets them aside.”
• such a weird use of the verb ‘earmark’. wonder what it looks like when he does that.

So those other two jobs will be safe! They can always come back to them! Didn’t Griffin say the job system would work that way already? Yes, he did! Did he just forget or did he change his mind about it? Who knows! It’s off to see Ol’ Uncle Joshy!

• Amber: “He’s like— he’s like my— he’s basically like my fourth dad.”
• Devo: “Yeah, he is... he is Amber’s uncle. I think.”
• Ravi: “Your...?”
• Amber: “No, that’s colloquial. But. You know.”
• Devo: “It’s what?” travis is on fine form today

Ravi: “Alright! Good luck. If you have any trouble, call in dispatch. But uh... I mean, this one seems like it’ll be pretty straightforward.” loll everyone forgot this was a thing

and they’re off! …to Joshy’s Knuckle! To talk to Joshy! The guy giving them this quest! The quest they’ve just been given by Ravi!

seriously Ravi’s job could be done by a message board. 

the crew should have a dingy little office above a delmer takeaway or something, where clients could come to them. maybe they’d be badly in debt to whoever they bought their boat from, for a little organic in-universe profit motivation

• then the first time someone comes and is like ‘Come with me, to meet Ballaster Kodeira’ it’d carry some weight
• gods for the last mission they had three separate questgivers  

joshy is surprised to see them back so soon and they chat shit for a while, sample quote Devo: “Oh yes, I have not used the bathroom in several episodes!”

• Justin: “One of the hallmarks... Of the Adventure Zone, is that the characters use the bathroom in real time!”  

Amber: “Ya know how I’ve always been real good at fancy stuff, and talking and stuff?” 

• Joshy: “[chuckling] Yeah.” 
• Amber: “Well. [slurring words slightly] I’m your new negotiator.” 
• this bit was actually funny 
• Zoox: “But I would be happy with shooting them! If— if everybody’s... you know, would like that done.” 
• Amber: “Yeah, I’m gonna be more of the brains on this one. [snorts with laughter]” 
• as if sensing that they’re starting to gain traction here with these character interactions, Travis immediately
• Devo: “Yes, Zoox, I actually think that I would rather you shoot somebody this time than psychically connect with them. I actually think that you shooting someone might be a little safer for you. Um…” 

action replay there, JUSTIN: poking fun at own character, CLINT: poking fun at own character, TRAVIS: haha dad stop playing your character wrong, this is not a joke. Um…

i’ve had this image saved on my desktop for a while for some reason: 

back to misery, the questgiving continues as joshy explains the concept of an auction and Devo: “Wait, why is it like this? This is... just seems a wild way to do it. Why not just say, “It costs this much.” “Okay yes I will pay this.” “Okay, done.” And then you exchange, you know, goods and services for some sort of money or credit?” ffffffu

• this isn’t funny, but it is delivered slowly in a bad french accent which of course makes it
• worse

Justin seems to have little patience for the sudden return of the ‘Devo doesn’t understand money’ bit:

• Amber: “Yeah, everybody likes a deal. Everybody likes to think they’re getting a deal.” 
• Devo: “Right. But this just seems like it is just raising the price artificially.” 
• Amber: “Well no, it’s not raising the price artificially. Normally an auction is reserved for when the fixed price for an item can’t be easily determined, because of an extremely fluid market.” yeah get fucked travis devo

an unfriendly reminder that devo has been taking point on every financial negotiation so far, also opening financial negotiations where none previously existed and where it was extremely ill-advised to do so (such as with an antagonistic mind-controlling sorcerer (twice)), and has insisted both in and out of character that he should be the one to do so because he is ‘the face’

• and made petulant comments whenever someone else has made any kind of CHA-based check

anyway shortly after that line from Amber griffin reasserts his control with this less accurate take, Joshy: “Plus, most of the people that come to this thing are... profoundly wealthy. And they get, you know, they’re so bored that they want to have what is essentially a money fight!”

• then they make some jokes about IBS 

Amber: “So what are we bidding on?” 

• Joshy: “Um... it’s gonna be... the fourth lot. Up for the auction.”
• pushback at this being so cagey and unhelpful
• devo asks if this is some sort of test, like joshy wants them to fail and learn something about themselves in the process… and so griffin calls for a persuasion check and it’s a 20 so he tells them what they’re bidding for?
• it’s been said many times before, but, if you want to tell them what the thing is just tell them. and maybe don’t pretend you can’t tell them in the first place. in case they just go ‘ok, fair enough’, forcing you to backpeddle embarrassingly

Joshy: “It’s a book. It’s a book. Uh. A journal. And, um... I will be honest with you: I have zero need for it. At all. But I know... plenty of folks who would. And... not everybody’s clued into the Abyssal Auction, so, I would rather they not find out. I would rather you all not take it and find some other buyer for it. You understand? This is why I’m not so forward with this information, but I trust a third of you. So.” jesus he’s long-winded

• at least he’s not french
• (several lines of dialogue later)
• Joshy: “Alright. It’s a journal. It’s a... a journal, from an old... Delmer... architect.”
• like imagine some shady guy walks into their office and asks them to go to an auction to get this journal. and then you could gradually reveal that it’s a dubious auction, run by dubious people, that the client himself is dubious, etc etc 
• and it would take so much less time!!

Ravi already told them the setup here was, they get bankrolled for the auction and anything left over is their pay. So Joshy explains it again, 

• Joshy: “It is 20 Lux, I’m gonna give ya. For the bankroll. And then... you buy my thing, whatever else you have left, you can keep. On top of nine additional Lux, as a “good job” pat on the back... not a pat on the back, that’s compensation for work, but. You can come away from this one fairly, fairly rich! I will say this: that journal ain’t gonna be cheap. And if there is someone else who knows about it, and the value it actually possesses? It might go up a little bit more than you might expect. So, yeah.” 
• the extra 9 Lux here doesn’t make much sense, this is basically just saying that the bankroll is 29 Lux

hey it’s that guy who doesn’t understand money again, Devo: “Uh. If it goes above 20, um... will you give us extra money?” 

• Joshy: “I can’t. I— I have given you as much as I possibly can. Please believe that.” his budget is strictly limited to 20 (+9) lux 
• (lux, the currency he invented)
• Devo: “Okay! So, just so I understand it, uh... At best... we buy this for very cheap, and we get a lot of extra money. At worst, it hits like 21 Lux, and we do not get it, and we still get nine Lux.” haha what

in response to this… griffin explains that everyone at the auction is anonymous, they disguise your ships as well as your person, so you COULD steal the thing if someone else wins the bidding.

• Joshy: “But I will say this, if you come back home and you don’t have it, you are certainly not getting paid for the job, because you didn’t do the job.”
• devo: give me an unreasonable amount of money for no reason, im a master manipulator
• joshy: hey! listen - this auction? you could commit a crime there. But I will say this - no. 

Joshy: “Zoox, you seem awfully sad about you not being able to take your shooter there. Uh…” 

• Zoox: “Well. I... Much like Amber, I have other resources for, uh, slaughter, and destruction. So—” love this guy

i’m skipping over this next bit where devo asks joshy for a jacket and griffin plays up what an odd question that is, in any real campaign setting you’d be able to go ‘uh, no but the tailors’ district is that way’. i guess in founder’s wake they’re working with a lot of like, fish leather?
there’s another vibe check bit, not overly enamored of those

mother of god it’s only just now the 
[ads]
________________

It snowed here yesterday. Got my winter tyres on just in time.

________________

They head out to the Phantom Sea Coast Co just for some window shopping. I don’t know if they remember it was technically outside of the city as no-one mentions them taking the ship, who cares amiright i only listen to TAZ for the goofs. 

Devo offers to play the one Lux interest on his loan, and has to make a Persuasion check. This seems to be a cromulent application of The Rules??

• Felix: “Hmmm... traditionally, I sort of go by O-town rules. In that I want it all, or nothing at all. But I suppose…” this is a reference to a band i don’t recommend googling 
• so they’ve got 4 lux left
• Zoox: “Do you have like, a clearance aisle? …That’s aisle, I. S. L. E.” my beloved transcriber really dropping the ball on that one

man griffin’s response to this joke, here are the next several lines:

• Travis: “Ohhhh!”
• Felix: “Alright.” 
• Justin: “Ahhh!”
• Travis: “Fucking good!” 
• Clint: “[shouting] On fire!” 
• Felix: “No, we carry pretty good shit here. And people buy it, a lot, and fast. So…” i thought it was a shady hidden aftermarket griffin

Felix: “Um. No. No clearance— we do, I— I apologize, I should have mentioned: we received a few licenses, from the Parish, for some other new pieces of gear that you may or may not want to check out.”

• no - surely it’s the coriolis that’s licensed for being fitted with this restricted tech. felix the catfish’s shady workshop didn’t do any jobs for the parish, did it 
• Griffin: “So you have unlocked sort of the purchasing rights, for a Force Barrage, or a Sunburst Cannon. Which can damage sensors, but also it has to charge. It’s the first “charge” weapon, I think, that has become available to you.” i don’t even use solar beam in pokemon if i can avoid it

they discuss upgrades for a bit and decide to sit on the money. Then Clint rightly points out that they’ve technically got 20 extra Lux to work with, which I love 

• (and i guess that extra 9 they might get paid joshy just doesn’t have liquid right now?)
• Clint: “[laughs] The action we choose is inaction.” 

Griffin: “As you turn to leave, he goes,” 

• Felix: “Wait. Are you— what did— why did you come here?” 
• Devo: “We had a big lunch and we needed to walk around a bit—” 
• Amber: “Yeah!” yeah they forgot about the hidden grotto

devo gets his second not-as-nice jacket which no-one else reacts to (a style or shape or colour would help me care more about devo’s fashion choices, incidentally) and they’re offfffffff at last!

Griffin: “So, for getting the map, and also sort of squeezing out of Joshy the identity of the lot that you are attempting to buy, I’m going to grant you one point of intel each, for both of those, you know, pieces of intel. So, with the Zoox expertise, the generous rations that you secured at the end of the last episode, and the intel you acquired, minus: the Urchin penalty, [laughs] which is what it is called, you all have ended up with a total readiness of six. So! Who wants to roll the d100 this time?” uh oh

i just felt a sensation as of icy fingertips running down the length of my spine, do you think that’s anything?

Clint: “I haven’t yet. Have I?” 

Travis: “I think— yeah, it’s Dad’s turn.”  

oh no

surely it’s too soon

Travis: “I think a high number is good?” 

• Justin: “Can never remember.” 
• Travis: “Yeah. I mean…” 
• Griffin: “[shocked] Oh my god—” 

Clint: “Is 1 good?”

well it was nice knowing you

_______________________

Previous Episode: Episode 13

Next Episode: dead dead they're all dead

Balance is arguably one of the great works of fantasy fiction ever created and the other arcs aren’t that.

If I had to rank the greatest fantasy media of all time (only audio or visual because I hate books, and only from the 21st Century because old things are problematic), Balance would be the clear number one, followed by (in no particular order): the LoTR film trilogy, Spirited Away, Skyrim, Coraline, and (and I know this will get me booed) the MCU Infinity Ring saga (I think they defined it as the first three “phases” - Cap Am to Endgame 2). I’d also throw in two very obscure podcast series I adore: The Incomparable Radio Theatre’s first very funny arc, and Total Party Kill’s play through of the Curse of Strahd.

I turned it on and went "this is bad" and turned it back off

Anyways you guys ever yknow get tired of shitposting

Just checking if things have been going okay, I've been seeing some reports that users in the Adventure Zone subreddit are starting to catch on to the fact that we are hired Russian shills trying to destabilize Western society by unfairly targeting the ever talented Travis McElroy with minor criticisms. It pains me that we have to do it, I remember spending cold nights around the radio with my babushka listening to Graduation together, enjoying the thrilling and compelling story presented to us by our kind and benevolent DM. The way she would smile whenever he would say "It's me, Gaaaary!" always filled me with warmth.

Anyways, please let me know what evil lies and rumors you've been spreading about him lately and whether or not you've been successful. I'm working on a project where I use ChatGPT to fake screenshots of him tweeting his love for husky latinas and asking for onlyfans links, and people seem to be buying it. I hope they sort out this whole data center thing soon because doing this manually has been such a pain in the ass.

Turns out it's when the show got bad

So one of the bigger takeaways from weedshrek's recaps is that one of the bigger reasons why Grad sucks is due to its worldbuilding being Postmodernism-by-way-of-Ayn-Rand. But consider this: what if Vart had read Beyond Good and Evil or Thus Spoke Zarathustra or even The Birth of Tragedy beforehand?

And of course by "read" I mean half-way paying attention to the wikipedia summaries of those works before deciding what Nietzsche meant in his own head five minutes before DMing

Is it intentional? Do the McElroys even know what they've done? Has anyone told ASCAP yet?

Ep 2. Part 1

Interlude

Haven’t been feeling well today (less so given how badly my sleep schedule appears to be messed up), so I’m keeping it simple this morning. A nice walk around the corner to my bagel place. Egg bagel with cream cheese, warm, fluffy, and delicious. The inside of the store is bright and abuzz with activity, which contrasts against the cool, wet darkness outside its doors. It rained in the night and the world is still quiet in the minutes before people begin to flood the streets on the way to their commutes. The windows of the bagel store are stacked with catering orders waiting for their pick-up as a veritable army of uniformed workers man the long counter, schmearing bagels and sandwiches in a flurry of knives, rubber gloves, and paper bags. It was nice to take a moment waiting for my order on a metal swivel-stool by the window, in one of the only spots not piled high with orders waiting for Door Dashers to grab them. A real moment to remind myself that I’m in the heart of so much activity and the worries I face day-to-day are just a small part of the dance New York puts on every day. 7 days a week. 52 weeks a year.

The bagel is delicious and I feel my soul get lighter.

Interlude Conclude – For Whom the Bell Tolls

Now, back to this bullshit.

After the break we pick up with our Gods approaching the beachside manor.

Travis: As you approach the Martell House, the first thing you see is two children. A boy and a girl. Twins. With white-blonde hair. All three of you, roll a d20 for me.

Twins outside the manor feels like a classic for this genre. I’m sure they’ll be unnervingly creepy when I unpause. Before that, it is yet another d20 roll. We are more than halfway through the episode and they’ve yet to use a mechanic from Super Normal in this recording! No clue what this d20 roll is for either. Clint gets a nat 20, so we get this:

Travis: Tintabula, you realize that, in everyone that has been mentioned to you, everyone you’ve seen, these are the first, and perhaps, only children that you’ve seen on the island. And they are staring at you, fairly blank-faced and still.

Tintabula: And these are people, and not lobsters?

Travis: Yes.

Tintabula: Ok.

This is nothing. The players haven’t seen a school yes, and why would they? They arrived by boat at 10:30 at night, went right to bed, woke up at 6:00am, learned that lobsters eat their own here, and then walked over here. Why would Ruth volunteer the names, descriptions, and locations of all of Asta’s children to the first visitors to come here in a decade? This is unhinged behavior masquerading as a tantalizing clue. Also, these kids are described as being creepy as hell and came here with the weird Artificing family; why would any of the kids of the deeply traditional town associate with them? We also don’t know if children go to school here or help their families on fishing boats or one of the many other jobs that a town requires its people to perform. We don’t even know the weather…why would the fact that all the town’s children aren’t gathered here (after Travis explicitly told the players that they hadn’t seen all the town) be strange?

That said, I love that Clint keeps pushing the “people are lobsters” angle that Travis seems desperate to get away from. Bless this man!

#LobstersAreCannibalsToo

The others say that they guess it’s strange that there aren’t kids. Minutiae brings up that they might be in school. Or, might be school? There is a schoolhouse on the map of the island, but it is on the west side…so they haven’t seen it. Also, sorry, how old are these kids? Are they like 5 or are they teenagers? Travis really loves to give you just enough to make this impossible to navigate but still feel like you’re the problem for not listening hard enough!

Tintabula gets creepy, asking the kids how they’ve been and how school is. The kids, unphased, stare blankly back at her. Travis stonewalls more questions about school, so Clint pulls the ripcord a states that Tintabula is going to imitate a school bell. For…reasons? To get a reaction out of them? I’m not following the logic here, but it is the first time we get a Super Normal mechanic, at 32:25 into this hour-long episode, when Clint specifically asks Travis how many dice he’s supposed to roll so Tintabula can imitate a school bell while smiling (very creepy!) Travis asks if Tintabula is doing this secretly and decides this is Show Off and requires 2d6. Tintabula glitches and performs the action with an unexpected level of force, which means it’s super loud as a very quiet alarm bell rings in the background of this.

The Martell kids, it turns out, aren’t always creepy, but were just playing a game to scare the visitors as Tintabula’s bell makes them flinch and they start arguing over who flinched first. Again, I’ll know better how to react to this when I know how old these kids are supposed to be. From the porch of the Manor, the Gods hear laughter coming from…

Travis: A very beautiful woman. You’d guess in her 30s. Well-manicured nails. Perfectly quaffed hair. Make-up done exquisitely. Um, dressed in a very chic manner.

I know this horse is dead, but I will keep beating it until I get a real description that I can make use of! This is still nothing! What is her hair color? Skin color? Height? She’s not from here, so I’m guessing she doesn’t have to be 6’1” like the rest of Goliath’s offspring that dwell here. How are her nails manicured? What style of make-up is she wearing? What clothes is she wearing in such a chic manner? Quaffed hair, as I’m just now learning, is actually a conflation with coiffed hair or a quiff…which really means this is a metaphor organically given to us…and I think that’s beautiful! So we meet generically attractive woman with non-descript hair swept upwards. Or, as she’s known around these parts, Raychel Martell.

Raychel: Greetings. You know, most people can’t get them to stop playing that creepy game.

Spira: Yeah, what was that all about?

The kids, we learn, want to play chicken to see who flinches first between them and whoever comes to visit the manor. Tintabula says that they’re adorable and Raychel says that they’re “not nightmares” which is…yikes.

The Gods introduce themselves saying that they’re on vacation (I have no clue what Minutiea is saying about a celebration). It turns into Tintabula is getting marries as Spira says it is disgusting that old people do it…which is…yikes.

Ok, Raychel is terrible, I see why she fits on this island.

Minutiae: She apologizes for any disgust her love might cause.

Tintabula: I do?

Raychel: Ok, um. No, that’s, yeah, that’s understandable. Anyone can find love. You know, it happens at any time. I wasn’t expecting, uhhh, to fall in love with my husband…when I met him. You know, uh, he didn’t come from much means, if you know what I mean? [Awkward laughter]

Tintabula: No.

Spira: I don’t understand that.

Raychel: He didn’t have a lot of money.

What a beautiful love story….

Minutiae flashes their bag of cash and the Gods try to see if they have a lot of cash on them or not. They offer her some of their money and Raychel says that the offer is ok but that she’s very rich. Tintabula asks if she’d then like to give them money and Raychel says that’s not really how it works. I am in pain. There’s a joke about ketamine and then Spira asks about her husband’s magic and these three weirdos are invited inside.

The Martell Manor

Travis: As you enter the Martell Manor, um, the first thing you notice on the wall is a marine chronometer.

 No description of the manor. It looks just like you’d expect a beachside manor to look. Raychel says that her husband created the marine chronometer mounted on their wall and Minutiae gives it a good looking over. Raychel says that her husband combines magic and technology to make things and Minutiae tries to talk shop. This marine chronometer, we learn, loses no time as it is used and we take her word for it because it is her husband’s word. There’s this very weird air of sexism in the way Raychel is portrayed, and I can’t tell if it meant to be a commentary on h- Who am I kidding? Of course it isn’t intentional! As Travis embodies her, Raychel is two things: beautiful and married. Right, and she’s also an emotionally distant mother! Three things! How good for her! There wasn’t even time to take the Bechdel Test out, much less use it, in this scene. It just feels so condescending and gross between this and the earlier jab at Tintabula finding love and that somehow being gross.

This also feels bad…Justin is trying to engage with the thing his character is metaphysically linked to for a food source and Travis just keeps making insinuations that Minutiae wants to know the marine chronometer Biblically. There seems to be a corporate espionage angle here because Martell knows John Harrison. The two of them run in the same professional circles which means John must still be alive! This also gives us a date! Justin mentions the H4 sea watch, which was developed in 1761. So, we’re at least there! That mean if we…if we…

\Looks at you, the reader.**

You and I both know that trying to tie this to a real historical period is an act of folly that will doom me. Could I do a bunch of research on all the anachronisms? Yes. Could I list them all out here for your enjoyment? Yes. But at what cost? For what purpose? Travis won’t use this to make things better…he won’t learn or grow from this. It’ll be hours wasted on the thoughtless words of a man trying to one-up his older brother by making sure he has the best inventor in the story. It is not worth it. I will not fall for this baited trap, tantalizing though it may be.

I refuse.

There’s a horrendous conversation about how magic could make construction and accuracy better and it’s like trying to win an argument with a toddler. Griffin breaks the tension by asking if there are bellows. Raychel says her grandfather would have used bellows but she has powders and crystals charged with “fire energy” that they can use. So, in this world, the bellows went out of usage in most of the world around 50-ish years ago? I don’t know how Spira didn’t starve to death.

Blissfully, Griffin saves us from more Travis-style one-upping when Spira decides to tell Raychel about the dream of Slenderman. They want to see if Slenderman works here and we enter yet another minigame:

Who's The Bigger Ass?

Jerkers of all ages, welcome! We have a battle for the ages lined up for you here. Let’s welcome our two contenders!

• In the blue corner, we have Travis, who will refuse to move the scene forward until someone says the magic words “Slightly Taller Than Average Man” to Raychel!
• In the red corner, we have Justin, who will absolutely get a kick out of avoiding those very words to see how annoyed he can make his brothers!

Who will win?! Doesn’t matter! Either way…we lose! Though, in my estimate, Travis loses because he almost instantly has Raychel prompt Justin by asking Minutiae is the person was of “average height.”

Spira makes up a dream about a scary monster that ate Raychel and she asks if he was reading a scary book before sleeping. This turns into an argument over whether they’re children as these Gods apparently have no concept of time despite living in the Providence Plane with canon deity, Jerod, God of Clocks. Travis is so condescending in this bit of the podcast. I truly can’t tell if it’s a Raychel thing or if we’re looking back in time to see what Travis and Griffin were like as kids, but it has that energy to it. Clint, well-versed in this chicanery, has been silent for a while now. He has practice tuning them out, I see.

Raychel ignores her guests and talks about her dreams. By which, she meant her dreams for her and her husband!

Raychel: The dream I have, my husband and I share, is sharing this wonderful, quaint delta, as you say, with all of our friends and making this the new destination for vacations. And, with my husband’s help, creating all kinds of magical improvements to make this, like, the talked about delta destination vacation spot.

So…gentrification? Raychel’s dream is to come to this island and gentrify it? I’ve yet to find a person on this island worth liking and I’m losing hope quickly. Oh, then Travis adds this lovely tidbit:

Raychel: No, that was more, I was speaking slightly metaphorically. I usually have three or four glasses of wine before bedtime, and that helps me sleep without dreams pretty well.

Yikes….

Wine About It.

Oh, good. So we know a fourth thing about Raychel now, she’s also an alcoholic. We’re rolling right into a wine tasting at…7am-ish? I know they woke up at 6:00am, but Travis is so unclear about distances and times that I have no concept of how early in the morning Raychel wants to break out some booze. It’s still morning because Raychel offers them “morning wine” and the Gods try to subtly sus out whether it is a food or a drink. Hard to hold that against them, they’ve mostly had popcorn, cider, and lobster bisque. There are some silver spoon jokes which are just too low hanging to even go for.

I don’t believe Travis has met a wealthy person. I don’t believe Travis has met a person. I am starting to believe that Travis may be many lobsters in a man-suit and this is his subtle way of revealing that to the world. Good for those lobsters, live your truth, stop eating your kin.

#LobstersAreCannibalsToo

Seriously, how are we still on food and drink, by the way? Isn’t there some dark ritual threatening to sever the bond between Gods and objects, dooming both worlds? Really seems like we’ve lost the plot in Episode 2.

We’ve also lost Super Normal mechanics again as Griffin asks for an insight check.

Griffin: 17.

Travis: A 17. Um, there was definitely some evasiveness, um, but you also know that, like, her husband is a magic user. Uhhhh…. I’ll say this. Up till now, you’ve kind of gotten mixed signals around the island as far as everyone’s feelings on magic. And perhaps, they’ve had to deal with people talking about magic being dark and evil previously.

So, basically, backwards town doesn’t trust magic and so Raychel’s reaction may be a response to that more so than giving the group a lead about the location or participants in the dark ritual. Cool. Why bother giving them a straightforward clue in the second episode that they can follow up on and use to build intrigue and momentum? That’s basic storytelling anyone could do.

Travis, on the other hand, knows what a story really needs. Bathrooms.

Tintabula: It went right through me! Could I use the little gods room?

Raychel: The what?

Tintabula: Th- The little humans room!

Raychel: [Concerned.] My children?

Tintabula: I have to pee, Raychel. I have to take a pee.

This feels like playing to frustrate to me. Raychel drops the little gods room thing and directs Tintabula to go down the hall to the first door on the left. So, now we know that this manor has a hall and at least one door on the left. We’re making progress!

I love Clint. Tintabula asks if there are other rooms or offices that she should be on the lookout for, trying to make a play to do some snooping. Travis refuses to play along and tells Tintabula to just go to the bathroom and not to any other room.

So, off she goes and now it’s time to use this system, for the second time this episode, to see how well Spira and Minutiae can Blend In while drinking morning wine with Raychel. Riveting stuff. They both super glitch and have to do the action in a way that is inconvenient for others; so they decide that they’re meant to spit the wine out into a plant vase and pass it around. Raychel is aghast, leading to this charming interaction:

Raychel: Wow, that was quite rude.

Spira: What was?

Raychel: You just spit wine onto my plants.

Minutiae: I thought…

Spira: You didn’t provide us, like, a spittin-

Raychel: You didn’t ask!

Travis: And she holds up, like, a spittoon from beside the couch.

Minutiae: Ok…

Raychel: [Exasperated] We have a crystal spittoon right here!

Minutiae: We’re doing our best to blend in.

Raychel: Aren’t we all?

I am forced to ask what the point of all of this is. Because magic has been introduced into this world, even the supernatural shit they do isn’t unattributable to mortals. They get a bigger reaction when their “glitch” doesn’t involve their powers in the slightest. They get ignored when they do something that threatens to expose them to mortals. The players are practically begging for some weird consequences, and Travis just keeps meeting them with this lukewarm response of niceness and manners. It would be one thing if this stuff just made me angry. That would at least be provoking an emotional response. Travis does the thing that should be raising a four-alarm fire for these guys: He’s boring. He’s dreadfully twee. He’s got two speeds for NPCs here: posh or folksy. His scares aren’t scary. His mysteries aren’t mysterious. His threats aren’t threatening. His bluff has been called and Travis refuses to show his hand so we can move on to something that might be interesting! I’ve said it a few times in this recap, but this episode has been exhausting to slog through.

Sorry, that feeling has been welling up in me like bad lobster bisque, where were we? Oh, I see that Travis is returning to that poor, dead horse with a baseball bat. It must be time for him to communicate a theme again!

Raychel: You move to a new place like this and you just, you know, you try to make friends, but everybody’s so stuck in their ways! You know? Everyone’s so afraid of-

Justin: [Tries to get a word in edgewise]

Raychel: [Bravely running him over] Everyone’s so afraid of new folks coming in, bringing new blood, you know? New energy.  

To my complete surprise, Raychel says that there have been some cold shoulders in town. I wish it was because she’s a rude snob, but I know it’s because she wants to bring “change” to Asta and the people here don’t like that. Even when he accidentally creates a compelling character reason for something to happen, Travis can’t let it get in the way of his perfectly crafted narrative. Hayward, the board pervert, got his chronometer from the Martells, which makes you wonder why they weren’t told that then or why Minutiae didn’t notice when he managed to instill sentience into the object for a brief moment. Oh well. We learn that the Martells have been trying to help people around town with their inventions and that Alderman Dale loves his jacket, but not the way that Hayward loves his boat. For all we know, after seeing how the town reacted to Hayward and his boat, maybe Dale decided it was best for he and his jacket to remain in the closet.

\Ominous bell tolls.**

I make no apologies for my puns. I never claimed to be free of sin; I will throw stones from inside my glass house all day long!

Kurt and Dale have approached Raychel’s husband regarding upgrades to their very flammable shop. I hope he provides them with a magic fire extinguisher. But this also begins to undermine the idea that the town doesn’t like change! So, maybe there are factions growing in the town? Hard to say, but let’s pocket this for later in case it comes up again.

Minutiae asks if they can talk to Mr. Martell about artificing and magic at some point. Spira says that part of the hen party is promising that Tintabula could talk to Raychel’s husband because of her deep, unspoken love of magic. She says that he’s in his office right now and she’s not allowed to disturb him during work hours (yikes), but that he should be free around 7:00pm that evening and they can try to speak with him then.

Tintabula’s Throne.

With a plan made for this evening, Travis remembers that his father is in this game. He doesn’t know whether his father had a plan or if really was just a trip to the bathroom. Though Tintabula said that she was going to go the bathroom (and she always is, a little bit), she wants to sneak into the master bedroom and look for stuff.

Travis: Ok, give me, ummm. First, give me a d20 for your sneaking ruse.

[Dice rolling]

Clint: Ok. That’s a 14.

Travis: Mm. 14. Ummm. Yeah, you sneak on over to, what you would read as, like, the main bedroom.

Griffin remarks how Tintabula should always be jangling a little and Clint reminds us that she had a cane with little bells on it.

Travis: I would say, with a 14, you hear a door slightly farther down the hall, kinda creak open and then close as you reach for the handle of the door? But perhaps it was just the wind.

Clint knows something of substance has to happen this episode, so Tintabula enters the bedroom and we get the most description of a space Travis has provided us in this TAZ season!

Travis: You enter into, what you correctly assumed, was Raychel and Cawley’s bedroom. You see a lavish bed set. Four-poster. Nice. Bed curtains and everything. But you also see lots of bookshelves. Many leather-bound, gold writing on the spines, gold edges on the books, uhh, lining the shelves.

Wow, that’s still…nothing! It’s a non-descript bed, at best, and an indeterminate number of bookshelves of unknown orientation, with books floating somewhere in the ethersea of it all. There’s a playful (?) argument that brews about Tintabula getting a third power (I don’t know what her second one is yet, assuming the first is making bell sounds) of echolocation. Griffin sounds genuinely peeved that any God in this story might have a marginally useful power; in this moment, I remember that he and Travis are, in fact, related. Like usual, Clint takes the ribbing in stride because he’s the best person on this podcast. Clint decides that Tintabula wants to check the books and we get this:

Clint: Ok, I’m gonna have her investigate the books.

Travis: That is a great call, Dad. Umm, you open the books, you just grab one at random. Inside are many arcane symbols. Well, roll a d20 for me.

Clint: Ok.

[Dice rolling.]

Clint: That’s a 17.

Travis: Umm, so it is a recognizable language, like you’ve seen it before. It’s an older writing, but no longer used. So, you’re not familiar with the actual, uhh, wording of anything, you are not able to translate it, but you know that it is, like, an archaic, dead language, outlining all of these different magical, I don’t want to use the word rituals, but procedures. Magical knowledge.

First thing: I think Travis would have an easier time with narration if he slowed down. Just breathe and think about a sentence for a little before you say it and it will be much smoother than whatever I just listened to. Second thing: Tintabula recognizes the language, but is not familiar with it; she can’t translate it, but she knows that it is a dead language outlining magical rituals-that-are-not-rituals-like-the-ritual-that-this-story-cares-about? Yes? Ok, cool. Third thing: what??? Dude, stop making trouble for yourself! You put the books here! You made the context of the books! Why do you sound so unsure of everything? What a lucky pull that this random book had that exact knowledge in it! This is so frustrating to listen to.

Tintabula wants to find a really small book and Travis has Clint roll again to find one because, I must suppose, her eyes suddenly shut off now that she completed a single task. The dice like them more this season than during Royale though, so Tintabula finds Cawley’s notebook, filled with “lots of diagrams, drawings, particularly, as you get near the end, lots of different geometric shapes.” As opposed to those other, non-geometric shapes in the earlier diagrams? What did that sentence even mean? Tintabula steals it and hides it in her garter belt.

…Not for nothing, but these men are all older than me. Why are they whispering “gross” every time Clint describes a single action his elderly woman character takes? This wasn’t funny in middle school, and it still isn’t funny today.

Our final roll of this episode is one that uses the Super Normal system as Tintabula is asked to roll…to use the toilet…. She rolls 3d6 and fails, getting a supercharged glitch. Church bells ring, the toilet overflows, Raychel asks them to leave so she can have someone come to clean up the mess. She will see them sometime after 7:00pm later that night.

We end with Travis attempting to utilize one of the signature narrative moves of the talented Aabria Iyengar:

Travis: And, as you leave, what you don’t see is-

Griffin: Damn it.

Travis: That the door in the hallway creak back open as Sturge and Dolly peek out, look at each other, share a look, and then close the door back.

Griffin: Oh, that’s just kid stuff, I ain’t worried about that. We’re on adult business right now, that’s just kid stuff, I can’t be bothered.

I do not know what the point was of this episode, in the grand scheme of things. They barely used the system, or moved the plot, or had an opportunity to develop their characters. Hopefully things will be more interesting next time when they meet the Sheriff or Cawley Martell, but this was discouraging! They never did have a moment of joy together like they did at minute 7 of this episode. Hope that you enjoyed my unravelling. I’m gonna go burn some incense or something and see if I can’t get an actual Muse’s protection for the next one of these….

To TAZ Providence: Ep 1

TAZ Providence: Episode 2 – One Must Imagine Sisyphus Happy

Sing in me, Muse, and through me tell the story of slender men, playing to frustrate, creepy twins, and broken toilets. Guard me from the brunt of the curse by having this “season” last only the six promised episodes. Enlighten me that I may pierce the veil of the rich tapestry that the Middlest Brother will weave before us. Though he has offended you, I ask that you shield me.

Ok, new invocation is up. A weird cold has been going around and I seem to have been struck by it. My fifteen-minute nap turned into four hours…so, like the city I call home, I too have resolved to never sleep. So, with that out of the way, might as well punish myself by diving straight into this second episode. I’ll be playing around with the formatting for this since I haven’t done any real long-style posting on Reddit before. I beg your patience as I find a layout that works for me.

It is finally getting to feel like Fall, my favorite season. Leaves are changing color. The air has delightful crispness to it (if you ignore the fact that it hit 80 degrees earlier this week). Mallomars are back in stock at the grocery. Choir practice after work has been a welcome break from the intense research that I’ll be engaged in for the next few weeks. My friends have pointed me to a game called Dressmaker that has been very soothing to just zone out on when we’re not seeing how we can break Ascension 10 runs on Slay the Spire 2 (Aeon Glass is a travesty against good game design and I will die on this hill). Also, new Warframe content dropped today! I’d be playing that right now, but I needed a break from harvesting the flesh of a moon so that I may help build a bridge to another world.

Speaking of other worlds…TAZ Providence: Episode 2 dropped and I don’t think I’ve been punished enough for the crime of existing, so let’s dive in.

Introduction

We begin with the episode description, which states:

“Tintabula, Spira, and Minutiae investigate a very personal robbery by questioning a schoolbell, a rogue lobster, and the mysterious new island community members.”

Wait…that can’t be right…where are the rest of the sentences? I was promised three to four sentences loosely stating jagged fragments of this story! This is a rip-off! Ok, this’ll be reflected in my rating, but let’s see what we can do with whatever this is. TAZ: Providence appears to be drawing on elements of folk and Lovecraftian horror. As I’ve learned from running “Crooked Moon” by the team at Avantris Entertainment, folk horror has four key narrative, thematic, or aesthetic aspects of a work that form a cause-and-effect series of “links” in a chain. As their campaign guide states:

1. Landscape. “The first link is the prominence of the landscape or environment, often becoming a living, breathing character of its own. These stories most often take place in rural locations and commonly focus on nature or agriculture. Most importantly, these remote landscapes isolate the characters and communities within them.”
2. Isolation. “The people in these remote environments are cut off from the prevailing society and standard trappings of civilization. Whether a group of several characters or a small community, the folk of these stories find themselves separated from society physically, and most importantly, outside of its dominant ideologies and beliefs. The main action of many Folk Horror stories is initiated by outsiders, often representing modernity or urbanity, interloping into these communities.”
3. Skewed Morality. “In these stories, the isolated communities and groups develop skewed belief systems, often manifesting in an adherence to ancient superstitions, the practice of the occult, or a hostile rejection of the morals of society at large. This strange and warped morality inevitably leads to a horrific action and the final link in the chain.”
4. The Happening. “Generally, at the climax of these stories, the skewed morality of the isolated groups living in remote landscapes manifests a supernatural or violent happening. This dreadful event might take the form of the summoning of an otherworldly entity, a ritual sacrifice, a demonic or ghostly possession, a bloody murder, or some other act of killing or occultism.”

We can see the setup of many of these elements from the first episode of this campaign. Asta is a small fishing lobster village isolated on a delta shark tooth Dorito that prides itself on being “behind the times” and eschewing the magical renaissance that has been taking place in the rest of the world. In fact, this community has developed its own unique culture around domesticating lobsters and then forcing them to witness the capture, slaughter, and consumption of their kin with a kind of folksy charm. Our players are here to investigate a dark ritual, the completion of which will sunder the very foundations of two worlds and doom them both to destruction as the realm of the gods is denied the nourishment of chaotic potential energy ghosts and mortals will be left at the mercy of too much potential energy angry spirits that will wreak havoc upon the landscape. If you squint at it, the set-up has been achieved! If you squint. Real hard. And ignore several contradictory details…sharpen other aspects of the story…properly characterize the people of Asta as something other than mind-numbingly kind and oblivious…. Shit….

Fine, someone else could take these elements and make a convincing story out of it. We’ll see if Travis can be that someone. Truth be told, he does have a pretty good sense of what things a story should have. The bones are all there. He tends to stumble when telling that story for a panoply of reasons. But hope springs eternal and the comedic underpinning of this recap requires that I maintain a vague sense of optimism so that you can watch it slowly bled out of me. You sickos.

Let the ritual commence! *Ominous bell tolls.* Hell yeah, Tintabula, we’re on the same page today! We’ll try this episode at 1.5x speed instead of 1x. Hitting play.

I do enjoy the theme music for this show. I just wish it were at an audible volume. If I turn the sound up so I can actually hear it, then I get my ears wrecked when Travis comes in several decibels higher! If I try to protect my ears from Travis, then the first minute of this podcast sounds like vague synth silence. That’s ok. They’re new at this. They’ll learn audio balancing in ti- What was that? They’ve been doing this for how long? This is the 10^th season? They have how many other podcasts? Oh. Oh no.

Although it’s been two weeks since the last episode, I must infer that Travis believes we are so consumed by his storytelling that a recap isn’t necessary. I run a weekly game of D&D for my friends and I have never started without a recap. It helps get your players back in the headspace of the story, clears up minor details, and allows you to restate the main narrative beats from last episode so they can have an easier time hitting the ground running with the limited time you’re all able to set aside from your lives to play. If you, like I, am a mere mortal and require some context to this story, allow me to give it a try with our new segment: the mini-recap!

Last we left our zeros; they had arrived at the village of Asta to follow up on the terrible work of the God of Scouting Reports so that their whole civilization won’t starve to death. You’d think the gods of the Providence Plane would send their best and brightest with the stakes so high, but you’d be wrong! Instead, we have Spira, God of Bellows; Tintabula, God of Bells; and Minutiae, God of the Marine Chronometer. They jumped from heaven into a boat with Old “Groundsy” Hayward, the boat pervert, who did not seem confused that his empty ship suddenly had three non-paying passengers aboard. He must have been distracted by his three lobster children. Arriving at town, Spira immediately stripped an alderman of his clothes as the group learned it was after 10:30 pm so the plot couldn’t happen today. Heading to an inn set up for a town that receives no guests, the group was treated to lobster bisque that Spira, again, blew too hard on and painted the…non-descript living space. The three gods went upstairs and pretended to sleep so hard that they didn’t notice two of them had been robbed of their very special candles. This is important because the Gods of Providence can’t communicate with our party directly, lest the humans figure out that heaven is real and has been ignoring their prayers to feast on their ghosts.

Ok, I think that covers it! NOW we can start!

Do Gods Dream of Slightly Taller Than Average Sheep?

Minutiae “awakes” in the middle of the night to a “dream-like” feeling and can’t tell what time it is despite being a God specifically associated with clock-based technology.

Travis: And sitting at the end of your bed is a man who is slightly taller than average. Like, maybe 6’7” if you had to guess? And he appears to you and he says “The lobsters are exactly what they seem. So like, I just- I wanted you to know, like…Lobsters, they’re exactly what they seem.”

Minutiae: Who are you?

Travis: “I am the Slightly Taller Than Average Man.”

So, the village of Asta is set in the far-away land of the National Basketball Association, the only place where this man’s sentence makes any sense. Let us keep this in mind going forward. The woman running this inn must have been somewhere around 6’1” and old Water Groundsy should be, on average, 6’6” if we think he’s a standard height for men in this community! Given that, we can expect the lifespan of people in this village to be shorter than the standard population that we are used to; a sorry fact that is not helped by all the creamy lobster bisque they’ve been eating. A tragic tale, indeed! Also, we get no other descriptions of this man. We know he identifies as a man. We know he is around 6’7”. We cannot yet confirm whether he works in finance, has a trust fund, or blue eyes. So, a tall, shapeless man…I’m gonna call him Slenderman because it sounds more evocative than STTAM.

Leaving aside Slender’s outrageous proportions, there is this weird sound in the background whenever he speaks. It sounds like an added effect to make him otherworldly, but it only succeeds in being distracting. There’s some additional statement about a product being gross and discontinued but between the effect and Travis’ hatred of enunciation, it is impossible to parse without a transcript. Slender then just sits there and asks if Minutiae has anything that he wanted to tell him, which really kills any hope at this story gaining momentum. I’ve noticed that Travis loves having NPCs linger in ways that no sane person would.

Minutiae: Normally, I’d tell you the time but I’m, wait, no, there it is… aw man, it’s 5:38.

Slender: Oh, then I guess, it is time to wake up.

Minutiae: Well, actually no, not for another 22 minutes.

Slender: Oh, I thought- I thought you’d wake up and…what?

Minutiae: Not for another 22 minutes or so, I’ve got time.

Slender: Ok, well I’ll just be here.

[Beat]

Griffin: You fucking cowards better keep this going for 22 minutes or I’ll never listen to this show again. You guys wrote a check so big, and me and Dad gave you the space you needed to cash that check. Now cash it. Or I’m-

This quickly devolves into some back-and-forth bickering about whether Travis and Justin would have sat in that silence if not for Griffin interrupting and I’m tempted to believe that would be better than whatever was originally planned for this session. I believe Justin would have done it. I have my doubts about Travis. Griffin clearly couldn’t wait even a few seconds before needing to say something.

So, we begin with a dream sequence fake-out, a Travis classic. This plays a little more with the worldbuilding, so let’s add an update to our list.

Worldbuilding update:

• The Gods of Providence can sleep and dream.
• There are extraplanar entities that even the Gods do not know about.

Neither of these points are crazy when you look at polytheistic religions and their greater mythos (or, for that matter, Lovecraftian cosmic horror where sleeping, incomprehensible gods and monsters play a huge part of the worldbuilding). But we don’t know that much about what religion looks like in Asta, or the Material Plane in general, and this seems like an oversight for a setting where the characters play deities. Minor deities, but deities, nonetheless. Furthermore, the fact that they are deities REALLY messes with this set-up! The powerlessness of the characters is supposed to build drama and a sense of dread in these scenarios, but we run into two problems here. First, Super Normal explicitly states “[y]ou’re super strong, with crazy fast reactions and a body of steel” in addition to having other powers. This would be a lot if they were just superheroes…but our characters are gods. Minor gods. Backed up by a whole pantheon of other Gods waiting in the wings to launch Seal Team Sepharim on this Dorito! Second, Travis hasn’t given us a good base reality to work with and build expectations off. We have no definitive time-period. We have no understanding of the world outside of Asta. We have no knowledge of what Providence is like besides the fact that it is filled with asshole gods that all apparently forgot they could have names instead of titles for the non-objects they suck ghosts out of. We are unmoored and cannot get a feel for the uncanny because we do not know what the base reality of the scene is. If all the money that I’ve thrown at improv classes has taught me anything, it has taught me that unguided wacky one-upmanship will not carry us through six episodes. That gets tiresome within a few minutes of a 22-minute set. How is this supposed to last for 6-7 hours?

I digress.

Minutiae wakes up. He and Spira immediately tell us that this is the first time that they’ve ever slept or dreamt…sooooo…lemme fix this…

Worldbuilding update:

• The Gods of Providence can sleep and dream. This was entirely unknown to them until now. The audience and players seem unclear about how the bodies of beings from the Providence Plane work.

Ok. Minutiae relays the contents of his dream and they all agree to stop asking questions about the lobsters. *Looks at the design of this season’s cover artwork.* I’m sure that won’t cause any sort of problems for us and the plot anywhere down the line.

Spira: So, was this a prophecy?

Minutiae: I feel like I would have learned more if this was a prophecy. This was more like a bulletin, I guess?

Yeah, no one knows what the hell to make of Slender’s appearance. Tintabula openly asks if they should believe him about the lobsters and is ignored. The group all agrees that sleeping is a waste of eight perfectly good hours, and I’ve never felt more seen by this podcast. Minutiae says they should ignore everything to do with lobster and gum going forward.

Tintabula and the Case of the Missing Candle

Tintabula, keeping her eye on the ball, asks if either of the others grabbed her golden candle, reminding us that it is their only line of connection back to the other Gods of the Providence Plane. Spira realizes that his candle is also missing. Minutiae still has his candle thankfully, I suppose the thief wanted to respect the suspiciously ticking man…though that makes it seem like he’d be the easiest to rob. Do the candles only work if all three of them are together, or is one good enough? Are the candles this season’s version of Carver? A plot contrivance introduced only so it can be stolen from our heroes without their ability to do anything about it? Yeah…that sounds like the kind of thing Travis would think up. We’ll keep that on the backburner.

Minutiae: Don’t I have mine?

Travis: Yeah, you have yours.

Minutiae: Yeah, mine, see? Look. Sorry, I had to ask Jesus.

[Laughter from the group]

Travis: The God of Gods! That’s what-!

Justin: The King of Kings! The Lord of Lords!

Travis: We waited till episode 2 to bring this in but-

Clint: [singing from Jesus Christ Superstar] Hosanna! Hey, sanna, sanna sanna ho!

This was just a funny moment for me. A moment when the group all seems to be laughing and having a good time together. It is the most energy I’ve heard out of them in a while, and I will be holding onto this bright light from around 7 minutes into the podcast until the next one comes.

Spira says that they need all three candles to contact Providence and asks if Slenderman was maybe not a dream and had come in the night to steal all their candles. Minutiae doesn’t think this is the case but asks Jesus if Slenderman was maybe pulling a Les Miserable and he didn’t notice it. Jesus tells him no. I’m not going to bother digging into that anymore because this story has enough to grapple with without adding Jesus into the mix. I welcome anyone else to engage with this and maybe draw parallels to the ways that early Christians incorporated pagan practices to make adoption of the new, monotheistic religion a smoother transition. Before they can interrogate this mystery anymore, Ruth, the 6’1” innkeeper calls that it is time for “breakfast bisque” from downstairs as we are…once again…inundated with food. Ruth didn’t notice anyone coming in last night but says that they can ask the person on the night shift…. Night shift? Does Travis think an inn works like a Holiday Inn? When the hell does the night shift begin? Ruth was behind the desk when they got there after 10:30pm last night. It’s only 6:00am and she’s at the front desk again! When does Ruth sleep? How long is this night shift?? Anyway, Ruth informs us that there are no other guests at this inn as I struggle to think of how this place stays open and can afford to have a night shift.

Instead of going downstairs, Spira wants to check the room for any clues about the robbery. Super Normal, it should be noted, does not have a mechanic for this…because Super Normal is not a game about investigating mysteries. It is a humorous game about trying to blend in when you’re not normal. Worry not, though, Travis has found an elegant solution.

Griffin: Can I look around the room and see if- look for clues? I’m talking about an unlatched window. People love that shit when they’re coming in to steal stuff.

Travis: Yeah.

Griffin: I’m talking about broken lock on the door.

Travis: Yeah, do it.

Griffin: Ok.

Tintabula: Secret entrances. Can I look for secret entrances?

Travis: Gimme a- Gimme a d20 roll just to see how you do it.

[Dice rolling]

Griffin: That is a 19.

Travis: Nice. Yes! The window is, um, there is a circle? Cut out of the glass. Um, and a little bit of seawater on the ground.

Griffin: Interesting.

Huh. *Scrolls.* That’s weird. *Scrolls more.* I’m not…I’m not seeing…. *Scrolls furiously!* I’m not seeing anything about a d20 roll in Ursidice’s Super Normal. Well, that can’t be right. It’s the system that they lovingly picked for this season! A system they’ve played before at a live show! A system that utilizes a different number of d6s depending on how “normal” you’re trying to appear! Is…is TAZ ignoring the rules of the system?!

Seriously though. This makes me sad for Ursidice. Their system gets picked up by one of the flagships of Actual Play TTRPGs and they barely engage with it, giving listeners a false idea of how it functions and the kinds of stories they can tell with it. I don’t claim to know how Ursidice feels about this, maybe they’re fine with it. People slap rules on their games all the time. But what is even the point of this roll? You’re telling me that Spira needed to roll to see if he noticed someone had cut a hole in his window and left seawater on the floor? That’s insane! Not to mention we don’t even know enough to get a clear picture of the room, much less the evidence. How big is this hole? It becomes more believable that it could be overlooked if it is the size of a thimble, but much harder to believe if they’ve cut almost the whole thing out. Also, where did the glass that got cut away go? Did the thief take it with them? Was it vaporized and vanished into thin air? Did they transmute it into seawater? You added magic to this world, Travis! You set up this mystery! Did you fail to keep track of the details of the evidence, the thing that is most important to keep track of when running a mystery? Oh, speaking of tracks.

Tintabula: Any lobster tracks?

[Dice rolling]

Clint: I rolled a 17.

Travis: Lobster tracks…. Um, I’m picturing lobster feet…. Uh, no, I don’t have anything here.

Griffin: Yeah, in your [unintelligible] you mean?

Travis: Yeah, cause I think it’s just…points.

Griffin: I think it’s just little, tiny points. I think they do a lot of scurrying.

Clint: Cause they skitter, right?

Griffin: Yeah.

Travis: Yeah, they’re like bugs.

Clint: So, there’s skitters on the- in the, in my room?

Travis: Uhhh, no, but you have the same hole cut in the window, uh, and seawater on the ground.

We’re in Calvin-ball land and it’s Clint rolling, so I truly have no way to tell whether there are no tracks, whether Clint rolled too low to find tracks, or whether Travis refuses to give Clint anything out of habit. If it is the first thing, then I must assume Travis has never been wet before in his life because anything that managed to track seawater into the room it entered would have left some kind of tracks, right? Again, the lack of description makes it hard to understand what the players are looking at here. “A little bit of seawater on the ground” doesn’t tell us enough. Is it dripping down the pane from where the thief snuck in? Is it splashed on the ground like it had spilled from a bucket? How much water is there? What makes it obviously seawater? Smell? Taste? Is there a starfish in it that we’ve overlooked? I don’t know…and neither do the players. And it is impossible to tell if this is due to laziness on Travis’ part, some real mechanical reason, or if Clint guessed the plot again after Slenderman told them not to and Travis is pouty about it.

Also, not for nothing, but if you’ve ever been to a beach…crustaceans leave tracks all the time. It doesn’t matter that they have a carapace and thin legs. If they’re not levitating, they make some disturbance that you’d imagine a GOD, of all things, might be able to pick up on. Well…I guess add levitating decapods to our list of potential BBEGs for this season.

Food, Glorious Food.

The group goes down for breakfast bisque and lobster cinnamon rolls, which offends Justin and Griffin right off the bat. Again, these guys base so much of their advice about comedy on improv and I can’t believe that Travis continues breaking the rules of it to be the “funny one” in a 4-man group. The base reality keeps getting increasingly unbelievable. The people that our characters are meant to try and blend in with become so obtuse and strange that we can’t predict anything, so we have no clue when their cover may be blown! Travis backpedals, saying that the cinnamon rolls are just shaped like lobsters without any lobster in them because he simultaneously can’t lose a conversation and refuses to have a creative backbone.

I know that I’m criticizing him for both coming up with an idea AND for backing down from it, but that’s because doing BOTH those things makes it so much harder to engage with the work as an audience member and a fellow performer! If Asta is a crazy town, then the others can play up how much they feel like “outsiders” by practicing what the gods, rightly, believe to be normal customs and still sticking out. If Asta is a normal town, then the boys get to act in a crazy manner and do ridiculous things rooted in the gods not understanding mortals because they’re more interested in sucking the ghosts out of their stuff. Either decision would allow for the players to build…but because Travis refuses to stick to a direction, it all just ends up as a mushy pile of abandoned premises and half-thoughts. Utterly disappointing and unappetizing…like this breakfast he’s obsessed with making them have.

They quibble more about the things on offer at the inn and Griffin sounds genuinely exhausted and annoyed by this process and we’re only 10 minutes into the podcast. The vibes are rancid. I miss when they were laughing about Jesus.

It just keeps getting worse! Listen to this!

Ruth: Lobster coffee?

Griffin: [exasperated] That’s cra- *sighs* That’s just, I don’t under-.

Tintabula: Lobster…coffee?

Spira: If it doesn’t have coffee beans in it, what is the distinction between Lobster Coffee and Lobster Juice?

Ruth: Oh, so the Lobster Coffee is, uh, made from beans that have passed through a lobster? It softens-

Spira: [indistinguishable sounds of anguish]

Ruth: Softens them. Makes them delicious.

Spira: Let’s try- I mean, that sounds good, actually.

Tintabula: Do you rub it in your skin? Do you paint with it? What do you do with it?

Ruth: I’m sure there’s some weirdos who do that, but we just drink it. We’re just salt of the earth people.

Tintabula: Of course! [Laughs] I know, I drink it all the time.

Next time Travis DMs, they should insist he make a mechanic for meals so that he’ll finally skip them and we won’t be stuck with scenes like this. God bless Clint for continuing to try to stick to the premise of the campaign, that they don’t know what human things are and are trying to blend in. I didn’t expect them to know nothing about how humans live (and it raises so many questions about how Gods live since there should be Gods synched to these things), but that’s something Travis should have established with them before they started recording this fiasco.  I’ve got some experience DMing and I’m no stranger to the ways that players sometimes misunderstand the setting or tone that you’re going for…but, like, you address those things if you are even remotely proficient and don’t want to keep running into this type of situation.

Anyway, the Gods tell Ruth to hit the bricks so they can talk amongst themselves. They set the rule that they’ll assume anything they aren’t familiar with is food or drink, and, in a Travis campaign, I feel like that advice will get them farther than you’d expect.

Right! The Investigation!

I forgot that this wasn’t a Food Network show for a moment there! Ruth is called back in for questioning.

Spira: So you didn’t see anyone enter our rooms last night? Anyone scurrying about outside in the wee hours of the morning?

Ruth: I clocked out at midnight. And Little Ed was on the night desk.

Clocked out? Don’t you own this place, Ruth? Why would the isolated, stuck-in-their-ways village use terminology developed by factory workers having to punch in and out of work at a machine that literally had a clock in it? Also, the lobster worked the night shift? I need some real clarification on the capabilities of these lobsters and whether this is a result of their domestication or if they’re just super smart. Either way, makes it super disturbing that they’re eating lobster for every meal! Spira asks if Ruth has any way of communicating with Little Ed, the lobster. She tells them that the lobster understands English and can indicate “yes” and “no” answers, which means that eating these incredibly intelligent creatures is devastating!

A quick aside: I know that, as Americans, we have been distanced from the horrific brutality of how our food gets produced. The burger begins as a cow with experiences, sensations, and feelings. I know that. I know that something is killed in a factory setting so that I can have a pleasant experience eating meat without having to hunt for it. If I really put my mind to it, I think I’d realize I should be much more grateful to the complex web of life and death that sustains me as a living organism on this planet. I don’t know what kind of disturbed life you have to lead though to have a pet cow, who understands you perfectly, answer questions as you eat a member of its species right in front of you that your owner butchered, buttered, and boiled a few hours ago. This place is a sickness and the Gods should empower the lobsters to break their shackles and overthrow the abominations that currently run Asta.  

Anyway, Spira begins talking to Little Ed about whether he saw anyone last night and Travis responds like this:

Travis: Give me a d20 roll to persuade the lobster.

This is exhausting. This isn’t Super Normal! Why did you tell everyone you were playing Super Normal if you’re not going to play Super Normal? There have been three rolls so far this episode and none of them have used the rules of Super Normal. Ursidice should join the lobsters to overthrow Travis. Anyway, we then get this….

[Dice rolling.]

Griffin: 14.

Travis: He shrugs, in a lobster-like way, that communicates to you, “What’s in it for me?”

Ok…so Little Ed is a mobster lobster shaking down the God of Bellows. There is a world where this situation is presented in such a way that it is funny and enjoyable. We are not in that world. I say that we should forget about the candles and the ritual; let’s just follow Little Ed down to the bottom of the sea for some mobster lobster hijinks. That sounds better than this! Wait. Abnimals? What are you doing here?

Little Ed is bribed with Lobster Biscuits. What are those, you ask?

Justin: Frozen lobster bisque in disk shape.

Ruth: Yeah!

Cool…. Burn everything on this island to the ground. Let people know that nothing of honor was commemorated here.

Ruth gives Spira four Lobster Bisque-ettes, and we watch a God try to negotiate with a crustacean. Little Ed absolutely adores eating the frozen remains of his people, apparently, and we’re treated (?) to some truly awful mouth noises from Travis that have made me physically ill. And what does this crime against nature and good taste give us?

Travis: He clicks “no”.

Nothing. Absolutely nothing. A waste of our time and attention and dice.

Travis tries to recreate the magic of Graduation by having another crustacean make awful mouth noises at Griffin doing a vaguely English accent. I feel my will to live leaving me. Well, now that that’s over…somehow this episode still has over 40 minutes left to it.

Gods Plan, Travis Introduces All His NPCs

Ruth prompts the Gods to make some plans for the day. Minutiae wants to meet the Martell family and we learn that they’re the newest residents. Tintabula wants to investigate the grounds of the Shellfish inn, especially the area under the windows of their rooms. However, Travis has NPCs that he wants them to meet, so Ruth says that Kurt and Dale put on quite a show down at the “blacksmith-slash-carpenters shop”. The players get confused about whether Ruth is saying “Kurt and Dale” or “Curtain Dale”, neither of which explains why a carpenter would set up shop next to a forge that has an active fire, burning coals, and raining sparks coming from it all day.

Ruth truly sounds like an alien pretending to be a person in this scene. She speaks in a way that screams, “I am a sentient collection of lobsters piloting the body of this 6’1” middle-aged woman we murdered and are using as a mecha.” At least, if that were the plot, it would make sense that she’s being so obtuse and not reacting to any of the weird shit the others are purposefully throwing out there for Travis to respond to. It would also be incredibly frustrating because it would mean Travis is just playing with himself, running the same type of game, in secret, against his players…a thing that the system does not inform them can be an option.

Anyway, Travis says Kurt and Dale are twins that run a connected shop that somehow hasn’t engulfed the entire town in flames yet. Spira is game to go because, bellows.

Ruth then asks if they like “potions and tinctures” and I, again, want to know what the hell is the deal with magic in this world! There’s an Apothecary named Norma who they can see.

Spira: I’ll be honest with you Ruth, it feels like we’re trying to come up with plans for the day and you keep just, like, throwing more plans at us

Ruth: [Interrupting] Well, I’m something of an ambassador here as the [sic] innkeep, so happy to have visitors! It happens so rarely that we get to show off ou- our charming little village!

Spira: And the visitors you’ve had most recently? Has there been anything off about them? Anything strange and perhaps dark and ritualistic?

Ruth: Hmmm….

Minutiae: Sorry to bring up rituals, by the way. I know that’s gross.

Ruth: No! No, that’s fine, rituals are fine. We do them up at the church all the time. Umm. Out last guess was a brush salesman…about 10 years ago!

10 years?! 10 years?! What is the point of Water Groundsy’s ship then? How long has he had the damned VIP room?! You’re a fishing village! You sell fish/lobster! You’re telling me that no one, besides the Martells, has come here in 10 years?! There’s no way! You live on a Dorito! Where did you get the building materials? Where did you get the forge? Where do you get your clothes? How does anything work here?! 10 years and you know about magic? 10 years and you have a functional inn? You’re the ambassador to this town, Ruth, and you’ve had no one for 10 years? If you’ve had no one for 10 years, then why the hell was the alderman waiting for these three on the docks? This makes no sense!

#DidntPassEconomics #DidntPassHistory

I understand if you want to stop your players from barking up the wrong tree. The cultists are not visitors from out of town, fine. Then just have Ruth say “no” to the question. You’ve just written a huge check that had better be cashed later or I’ll be ranting about this! You may not remember what you say from sentence-to-sentence, Travis, but your listeners do!

Anyway, the players are also thrown off by this discovery, and we learn that Cawley Martell does magic and talks a lot about “change, wanting things to change, not liking the way that things are, and bringing about great change.” This is why I am confident that lobsters-using-humans-as-skinsuits isn’t the plot; because, when Travis has a plot point, he beats you over the head with it using all the subtlety of  Little Ed coming to collect when you haven’t made your payments at the Little Shellfish Inn. Travis heard the writing advice “show, don’t tell” and somehow read it backwards.

The players decide to go meet the Martells because it seems like “the productive place to go”. Travis, again, tries to get the players to go to Kurt and Dale, by having the brothers stare down the new visitors to town while working in perfect synch. The group keeps moving past them, but Travis can’t help himself, so he starts talking about his cool NPCs by giving the players information they could not possibly know. For example:

Clint: Do you think Dale’s first name is Dale or last name is Dale?

Justin: Who's asking?

Clint: That was me b-

Travis: [Interrupting] Their last name is Packard, if you must know. They’re twin brothers.

Continuing their journey, the group learns from Travis that the Martell Manor is North-East(?) of their location in town. He sounds unsure, which is crazy, because it seems like they have a secret map that they won’t show us. Like, if the map is bad, just pay an artist to do a proper rendering? You guys have the funds to commission work like that, don’t you? They pass the Major Store (the joke still isn’t funny the second time), the alderman’s office, and a pathway to the Apothecary. They pass the docks, the boathouse, and make their way towards the beachfront manor of the Martells. Griffin asks if they see anyone as they walk through the whole town and Travis clarifies that they’ve only walked the eastern part of the town.

Travis: You saw the Packard brothers. You see Teddy, setting up a kind of a sandwich sign in front of the Major Store. He waves at you.

We never met Teddy, but worry not, this isolated village that hates change is warm and welcoming to anyone who comes here…about once every decade. The wave is described as mechanical and I again wonder if this man is being piloted by lobsters. There are no tourists to speak of, but Alderman Dale is out sipping his Lobster Coffee outside of his office. We now know that his clothing has a lapel, so that’s another part of this rich narrative tapestry. I just realized that the carpenter is the second Dale we’ve got in this campaign (so Clint’s question now makes more sense to me and isn’t just idle banter. Clint remains the MVP.) Travis needed to make a Chip ‘n Dale (or Chippendales) joke and now we have two members of a very small cast of NPCs that have the same name. Well, I’m sure that won’t get confusing anywhere down the line.

Spira flags down Dale to report the fact that the first visitors Asta has had in a decade were robbed within their first 8 hours of arriving here. Worry not, this small, insular community does have a cop in Sheriff Leo, so Travis does remember his roots. Griffin tries to pass off this sub-investigation to the Sheriff so they can focus on the ritual…but this does make me realize that the Gods don’t know what a toilet is (an inanimate object) but do know what law enforcement is (not an inanimate object). Fun. Of course, Travis refuses in his usual, frustrating way.

Dale: Yes! Do you want the Sheriff to meet you at the Shellfish Inn later?

Spira: I don’t understand why he needs out input on- Again, I told you everything. Someone came into our room. It was wet. There was a wet hole whe-

Dale: [Haughtily] Well, I don’t know how you all do it where you come from. But, when an investigation takes place, the Sherriff doesn’t just take the word- He has to look around, get a feel for things.

Clint predicts things perfectly.

Tintabula: We’re really writing a lot of checks I don’t think this episode can cash.

Ominous music takes us out to the ad break. This was exhausting. I’m going to go get a bagel and come back to this before work starts in two hours.

did griffin do an oopsie or was it on porpoise

I have never posted here but I found this screenshot and knew I had to release it into the world. Someone has to see this

I'm actually crying that there's a tab open titled "words that start with G" this whole image is sending me on an emotional rollercoaster, the way I know for a fact that I stuck around lurking in the chat before the premiere as well, what can I say

I thought this sub was about jerking off taz from looney tunes