No thread to discuss the most prolific piece of DnD-related media to exist within the last decade...

The fuck kind of lefty bias do you mean? I'm not seeing anything like 'and then Taako established a communist society' or "the BoB's end goal is universal basic income for the citizens of Neverwinter."

there are several trans characters, several characters are revealed to be gay, etc, a lot of its spoiloers so i wont overshare

in fact, of the like 6 romances in the plot there is one straight romance and one of them is trans

I actually just recently finished the first arc (the LMoP one) since I needed something new to listen to for a long drive. They weren''t too bad. Will give the next arc a listen to on another long drive this weekend.

dont let what gets said here discourage you, it gets so much better before there are any complaints and they are pretty minor.

i finished the series in a few weeks and it was worth the trip.

A lot of their fanbase flows from Tumblr, so you can guess the damage that comes with that.
The McElroys like to consider themselves "open minded" and "not prejudiced against anyone," and they do an OK job at that.
But lately they've been reaping the whirlwind of diversity unfettered, and learning the great lengths to which teenage girls will go to be offended.

Trans people aren't fucking 'lefty,' just ask Caitlyn Jenner's crusty 1% ass.

>What did you actually mean when you used this word

I mean it's by far the most popular DnD podcast that's ever been made, for one. There's already a graphic novel adaptation in the works. It's been written about in the Washington Post. They get referenced in shows like Steven Universe and other shit. They've had Lin Manuel-Miranda play with them for a special episode.

I used to like it a lot more just because it was funnier before it started getting really wrapped up in the plot. They still try to crack jokes sometimes but it's just weird surrounded by the general serious tone. Clint for example really tries to be a funny guy all the time but it kind of falls flat for me now that shit is going down. I still think the plot is really engaging and seeing all the dots connect has been quite the pay off, but I did start watching because it was funny. But it's hard to be hilarious in the face of the story they have going right now.

I feel similarly. Really like the first few arcs but I've been a little more disappointed with recent ones as Griffin has taken more control of the narrative from the players. I enjoy a lot of the connections he's making but it's not as entertaining. Still good though

This, the first arc is kind of bumbling since most of them have little to no experience with D&D, but I agree it gets a lot better, and it doesn't start fuckawful or anything imo.

I think when they start the next (whatever they call it universe?) it will be a much smoother transition now that they have done the whole song and dance once.

Oh I'm sure. I haven't heard the episode since it was doner's only iirc, but if it's in the universe that Travis DMs, it sounds interesting to me. I just found it a weird tonal shift. It was really noticeable when Travis started taking it super seriously, and I find it a little grating when he does serious shit and then talks about lol so randumb bears and shit, I think it was all around the end of Crystal Kingdom. Clint never really did start taking it REAL serious, though I think funnily enough when he is serious it's so earnest, like when he talks about his kids. But he's surrounded by the doom and gloom and he's kind of forcing himself to be the funny irreverent guy.

I think you mean Bruce. He's decided that he's a man again, apparently.

Haven't had a chance to listen to the last episode yet, but I largely enjoyed TAZ, but felt that the last couple arcs or so have been kinda asspully.

I never liked Taako.

Never heard of it or anyone involved in it. I'm pretty sure order of the stick is more prolific than this shit.

If Im real, i dont particularly like or feel connected to any of the characters individually. Its just their synergy is so through the roof it makes them all likeable for me.

Actually, i lied, though its not the party. I actually like Lucrecia in general.

Taako grew on me, but if theres one character I really like its Angus

Only Angus really left the lasting impression.

Check out Bards & Nobles. Non PC bs, just a bunch of drunk guys d&ding.

>Also while TAZ is probably the biggest live play podcast/stream going
I'm pretty sure if you ran the numbers it would actually be Critical Role, but I wouldn't be surprised if TAZ wasn't close second.

It's over now though, which makes me wonder what system the McElroys are doing next. They've confirmed at this point that they're going to do something different but no idea what yet.

they strongly hinted that they were doing a superhero campaign, so probably one of those.

Bearing auditory witness to Griffin clenching like a diamond former when Merle started casting Mass Cure Wounds and then his nine second in the future self came back to stop him got me laughing harder than anything else in the whole series. Good finale, even if the epilogue bit dragged, but better to have it run too long than run too short.

Thinking about writing a Lup & Barry noir detective fantasy novel where they unravel a big death cult plot and fuck up a bunch of cultists with their lich reaper whatever powers. Could be fun and I haven't written in a while.

That's a hyperbolic OP. I like TAZ along with a couple buddies, but not quite as much as earlier in the campaign. There was a few hiccups trying to retcon things into the overarching plot (ie everything Barry) and it became less of a game and more nonstop exposition toward the end. Still entertaining.

The Adventure Zone is meh. They aren't really playing DnD, so the action doesn't give off the sense of excitement and interactivity that PnP games offer. But they also aren't making a real audio-drama, so the plot feels forced and ends up not being uninteresting. If you want a good actual play podcast I recommend The Glass Cannon, they do a very good job of combining drama and comedy. They also actually (attempt) to play properly.

listening to episode zero and i already like it, thanks.

I paused TAZ to take a shit (bathroom fan too loud & no headphones on hand) and opened Veeky Forums to this thread.

I tried listening about a year ago, and couldn't get into it.
However in April I started listening to the Sawbones back catalogue and I love the way Sydnee and Justin interact, so I gave TAZ a second chance, listening to it as "a podcast about male family bonding and everyone trying to troll Griffin" and I've been enjoying it so far. I'm in the middle of the murder mystery arc and yes, things are still sloppy but it feels like my real sessions were back when I had a group - people losing focus on the game but still trying to make each other laugh.

Also I don't have a dad and papa McElroy's old people references (like the Waltons reference I just heard) make me smile.

Thanks for reading my blog, make sure to like, comment, subscribe and check the description for a link to my Patreon where I draw furry slash fiction of Sonic the Hedgehog featuring Dante from the Devil May Cry series.

>golden age/renaissance of RP we're in right now
You mean the cancerous infestation of sjw, e-celeb dick sucking, lolsorandumb meme spouting trend hoppers?

>"the BoB's end goal is universal basic income for the citizens of Neverwinter."

did you miss the part where Goldport and Neverwinter did basically that at the end?

Who else here recommends D&D is for Nerds as the true best tabletop podcast. It's underrated as fuck as well, so Veeky Forums should love it

The kind of lefty bias that makes Taako's skin color a hotly debated issue.
There were people who wanted Taako to look Latino. A character played by a white man, named after ethnic food, who steals constantly and is usually selfish, certain fans wanted as a piece of Latinx representation.

It was really obvious that Griffin took the Flaming Raging Poisoning Sword of Doom away from Magnus purely because it threatened to trivialize the entire final fight.

But all things consideres I adore TAZ and the McElroys. As a dungeonmaster, Griffin's style is definutely pretty rigid, but I know it's all been for the sake of providing satisfying narrative payoffs to what is very much a narrative podcast. Even then, I thought the reins he still handed to his players, in stuff like The Stolen Century and everything about the bond engine, was still very good and interesting.

I generally enjoy it. It definitely rides the rails a bit hard, especially towards the end. However, if it were more open ended it would probably be unbearable to listen to because the players would just spend time faffing about. We're running into this issue on the podcast I'm on, where we spent like four episodes just spinning our wheels because our GM doesn't know how to push us forward.

It's fun and silly and it's a decent primer for people not in the hobby. But because it has a large Tumblr fanbase and it's aimed at normies a lot of grognard hipsters here are going to reflexively hate it.

>Trans people aren't fucking 'lefty,'

Yeah they are.
It's another symptom of the equality disease, where we're told to respect people even if they're clearly deranged.

Yeah, if I were him I would have had the sword explode or something at least. Give it a good send off rather then it just vanishing inside John

Source please, this I can't wait to read.

>However, if it were more open ended it would probably be unbearable to listen to because the players would just spend time faffing about.

If you want a good example of that in action, look at Blaine's DMing for Nerd Poker. Just like a full year of murdering giants who refused to be NPCs.

It's his own fault, honestly. When you put an 8 year old's wet dream item in a shop you deserve it when your players pull shit on you to get it and use it.

What's your podcast, amigo?

No need to be hyperbolic OP. It's popular, but it's nowhere near as popular as Critical Role, etc.

Critical role isn't actually popular with normies since it's an actual campaign, not a mix of DnD and radio drama like TAZ

So you base your deduction on the one damn exception?

Did you enjoy eating all those paint chips as a kid?

I thought all of that was great. 8-year-old's unbalanced superweapon in the shop? Funny. Wizard pulls shenanigans to obtain it, then decides to just wear it on his back for style points? Also funny. And of course the GM has to eventually take it away. Pretty classic thing to have happen in your first campaign.

The whole thing's a pretty fair representation of what it's like to get into tabletop. You start out with a bunch of dumb jokes, slowly get really invested in the story and characters, and never stop making dumb jokes. That's it, folks, that's the hobby!

I've been playing tabletop for 15 years. I listen to TAZ, but couldn't get into Critical Role.

I mean, maybe you're right, maybe you're wrong, but I don't think you have any actual evidence either way. Whatever, I'm happy when more people get into gaming. A bigger player pool makes it easier to find groups, or drop and replace problem players.

200% more Facebook followers
50% more Twitter followers
100% more website traffic
etc, etc

Personally I think both are shit but you need to pull your head out of your ass if you're going to make blanket claims about the state of the hobby.

The Armchair Adventurers Club. I don't run it, I have just played in a few games here and there. I ran a Bubblegumshoe one shot for them inspired by Stranger Things that was pretty fun.

The final boss battle was kinda disappointing and generic, and the whole Istus time stop prophecy thing was the worst most obvious non-choice of Griffin's many many obvious non-choices, but the fluff wrap up in the second half was good and I personally really liked Davenport's time to shine at the start so overall I'm satisfied.

I'll stick around to check out whatever they do next, hopefully they can regain the feeling they had in the earlier story arcs.

Alright, can someone summarize the main points of The Stolen Century so I can listen to the final arc? I just hated that arc in particular and never finished it after the first episode.

GMs should take a note from griffin in story telling and plot expansion. Griffin makes the individual character goals important, so each PC grows as the story progresses, and NPCs are people rather than objects to be used. It's awesome. I've become so much better at creating worlds since listening to TAZ. Plus my player base has literally incresed by 100% since i have introduced all my friends to dnd via taz

I actuslly did some digging around about the graphic aftrr watching this episode and Ibwas shocked at how muh shit the McElroys have been dragged through the cleaners trying to please an entitled fanbase. Like theres people upset because they decided to give an elf, a fantasy race, fantasy greenish blue skin because hes also drawn with a pointy nose and the blueish skin could be construed as green skin and making him an antisemitic caricature.

It legitimately makes me angry that these guys can make this passion project and they keep getting backed further and further into a corner because they had the gall to not guess this would spin out of control into a wild success and weren't more careful about making characters that couldn't be twisted into racial stereotypes, which people would do no matter what once it got this popular, no matter what choices they made different.

They sound so unironically nerdy I cringe.

That was a shit podcast and a shit campaign.

They're shit.

>the hunger keeps killing planets to get the light of creation
>the crew keeps cucking the hunger and taking the light for themselves making friends during the journey
>merle becomes friends with the hunger
>the crew decides to make the grand relics so the hunger can not find them, Lucretia gets pissy
>Lup dies
>lucretia wipes everybody's memories so they cant stop her from collecting the grand relics so she can beat the hunger
>makes davenport retarded for no reason
>lucretia cant collect the relics on her own so she tricks THBs into getting the relics for her

There are so much better actual play things out there, you don't have to settle for this.

The only D&D podcast I ever watch is Acq Inc

Who's settling? Most people listen to multiple. You can have more than one and enjoy them.

Thanks for letting us know to instantly discard your opinion.

Yeah, but it's sad that trash gets recognized.

I forgot that I was on Veeky Forums, where there is no fun allowed.

Can you please reccomend some good ones? A lot of the ones I have tried have terrible audio quality.

I just think it's not that great.
Crit Juice, up to episode 56 after that they switch to 5E and the quality drops. It's still okay but it's not as good.
Ghostbusters Resurrection
Milkrun
NeoScum
Never Tell Me The Odds
Pretend Wizards
Tabletop Escapades
The Call of Cthulhu Mystery Program
The Danger Dice Gang
The Dungeon Rats
The Infinite Bad
I'm also just starting Full Immersion, What You Fight For, and Roll One but I'm just a few episodes in so I can't say how good they are.

It's a very good podcast, and fits in very well for that certain style Adam likes. There's also Friday Night Quests which is a fuckton of fun
Dragon Friends and Fates and Fables are also pretty good.

Leave it to Griffin to wait until the last 14 minutes to fucking tear my heart out.

>"How does magnus die?"
GRIFFIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIINNNNNNNNN

I wish they stopped pretending they were playing DnD and switched over to being more of a fullflegded audio drama. I enjoyed TAZ but was frustrated at how it turned from DnD to one long arse cut scene that never went back to gameplay and oh whoops now the credits are rolling and you only had one QTE at the end.

I'm happy that some of the new people I'm DMing for are fans so we get a few goofball moments in reference to it, and they all understand that this is not TAZ, but I worry for all the fresh TAZ fans trying to get into DnD and pissing off everyone else, and deciding to never really try it out.

Hey, he got his dogs, he got his nice long life, and he gets a happy death. Let those good tears flow my dudes.

I teared up a lot but mostly I tear up pretty easy. I get weepy over overly awesome things and overly sad things so.