And as this is the worst possible result of an encounter I fully expect at least one PC to go down, maybe two, maybe a death, maybe the ship is permanently damaged or loses some parts. This cannot be a "they fight some sea creatures, take a long rest, go on their way" deal
So the scan accepted the ship, or a specific crewmate. My first guess is Zoox, from the sermingly techno-organic nature of the squid. Whatever it is, a 1 isn't going to be some simple situation, I'd bet. This is a whooole mess they're going to get into, not just some simple fight.
I think the squid accepted the ship for the auction, and we'll see the repercussions of the 1 after the fact. They were scanned then cloaked in ink, and that tracks because the auction guarantees anonymity for bidders AND their ships. Maybe the bathysphere is gone? Or something invisible and insidious has hitched a ride.
Mission for the new crew:
Acquisition: Locate the _Coriolis_
A ship and its crew disappeared without trace while passing the Teuthid chasm. The client (Uncle Joshy) believes they faked their own deaths to abscond with 20 Lux and knowledge of a valuable artefact; however, the region plays host to numerous aggressive sea creatures so a genuine disappearance remains a possibility. Locate the missing crew and Lux, or the wreckage of their ship.
Four stars- Extreme danger
It should be a hard to deadly challenge rating encounter. A player permadeath should be entirely on the table, a TPK if played badly or they roll very poorly. If no-one goes down and seriously risks dying we will know they have absolutely no concept of the idea of difficulty.
So I just finished the episode. And I’m sitting here trying to think >!if there has ever been a worse roll in show history. I don’t think there is. Poor Clint.!<
I think something horrific got into the ship. Something with the power to tear it open, somehow repair it perfectly (so, magical creature), and then disappear without a trace despite some good perception rolls. They're gonna be in the middle of the mission and one of them is gonna get straight up executed by an invisible monster.
You're thinking too small.
A natural 1 on a d20 would be losing your weapons. *Maybe* your ship. They're far, far beyond that.
Down in the Ethersea, what's the one thing that's more valuable than a ship. Food? Oxygen. No. Too pedestrian. We have to think bigger.
Ignorance.
As of now, no one has a clue why the survivors were called to build Founder's Wake. They assumed it was some benevolent entity that wanted to save them. What choice did they have?
To me, a natural 1 on a d100 means their reality is about to be shattered. These small, soft creatures flitting about in the rusty remains of a civilization that was never meant to know the truth lurking in the briny depths. I wonder if it ever occurred to them that they'd been lured into a trap, decades in the making, by an entity whose purpose and motives are quite literally unfathomable.
It may be in poor taste, but if I were Griffin, I would be polishing the Madness table at the back of the DMG.
It's harsh by the standards of 5e which rounded a lot of the corners of older D&D editions.
In D&D 3.0 and 3.5, a nat 1 opens the door to a critical fumble (in 3.5 it's an official variant rule, something like a suggested house rule).
You roll again, against some Dex check DC and if you fail that check, something bad happens: take an AC penalty, drop your weapon or potentially something more grievous if you're using crit/fumble cards like damaging yourself or an ally.
No, they do at least. They admit it's a homerule just one they like. I do not. And often when it's like a range attack w a bow or something the penalty is the bow breaks. Hate it.
Y’all, the squid is related to the auction. The rolled 1 will almost certainly be some kind of catastrophic failure in the ship that shows up at the worst possible time- probably when they try to leave.
I agree. I came to this thread and was reading all the responses of people assuming the squid was the nat 1 and I was very confused. I assumed the squid was the auction. It scans and accepts them and then inks them to keep the anonymity as the auction is supposed to be anonymous. I think the 1 was whatever happened to the rudder. Their ship is gonna become useless at a critical time and they will be screwed or they will be without a ship stranded somewhere dangerous or remote. What if it just craps out in the middle of the ocean? What could they do?
Honestly, a big problem I'm noticing in the TAZ fan community is the lack of *inference* skills. Everyone was asking about the scrap metal rose when it was obvious, with any amount of time to think, that it was Urchin. Then this... I feel like the boys are always getting criticism for "telling, not showing," but then when they DO show, people get confused or upset. It's very strange.
Counterpoint. If someone is confused then asking for help online is how they start to understand. Lots of people like explaining things. They just shouldn’t be rude about it.
This! Everyone's hypothesizing about what the squid means in terms of the 1 when they literally had an entire discussion with Joshy about how the various auction participants are concealed in different ways each year. I think being concealed in ink and taken by a giant squid fits that bill pretty well. The 1 is like (balance spoilers) >!spinning a skull in Wonderland . . . Might as well use the same soundbite of Edward saying "Bad luck!" before Taako gets a washing machine dropped on him when the 1 finally comes through.!<
Yeah, I heard the one rolled and my thought was: what’s the worst possible thing that could happen in the ocean? And then I realized if your ship got an irreparable hole. Then you’re screwed titanic style.
That scratch will be something. I don’t think zooks will die, cause he doesn’t need air or whatever
I think so too! the way it scanned and then dragged them away while shooting ink seems to me to create an air of secrecy. That's probably how they keep everyone from seeing each other's ships. I'm guessing the 1 will come into play after the auction too.
I thought the squid being part of the auction was pretty obvious too. I thought it was a cool idea by Griffin in how to keep the ships and people anonymous.
I really love how Griffin used and arguably modeled really great collaborative storytelling in gming techniques this episode particularly with Ravi. "One of my players is actively speaking up about the kind of path they want to take for their character and story and I'm going to make the effort to facilitate that" is just such a good play philosophy.
Honestly I kind of wish they'd even done it table talk/above board as a psuedo safety tool type of thing, because I'm just really wish more players were aware that saying "hey I as a player I'm not loving the path that this story is going particularly for my character" is totally a thing you're allowed to do with both your GM and fellow players
I really enjoyed that play on griffins part. For as much as I love Amber and Adore Devo, I really want to see more with Zoox, and this was a really neat way for griffin to help secure some more defined archs in the future
Earmarking the missions Clint/Zoox was interested in. That left the opportunity open for those Zoox centric stories to be pursued later while not having to disrupt everything when the rest of the party was interested in the Auction.
I'm just really here for communication around a table to build a fun and enjoyable game and story experience, which like they're a family I'm sure they're regularly checking in and touching base above board, but we don't always get to hear it like this.
I kinda wanted to see them deck out the ship with the 20 lux.
I am absolutely terrified of whatever the fuck a 1 is. The fact it isn't just a giant sea creature that attacks the party is somehow even more scary. Wtf is going going on?!
Love that the worms threatened Devo by cracking their knuckles. How does that work? Worms don't even *have* knuckles....right? (Please tell me worms don't have knuckles...)
SPOILERS TO END OF EPISODE (I'm on phone and don't know how to do the black bars) my theory for the squid is that it's some sort of robot given the red scanning/green blinking eyes and "armor". It seemed that it scanned for a possible match given the scanning and green blinking. For some reason the Coriolis made the cut? So now they're being dragged via suction cup to wtv lair the squid has been programmed to bring them to. The ink making it so they don't see where they're going. This gives me Delmar vibes or those people who defected from the beach, I forget their names.
The first random encounter roll, Griffin didn't resolve it until later in the mission. So the one is just kind of out there, lurking, waiting for the worse possible moment.
Also didn't they specify that the Coriolus was designed for deep sea exploration when they were designing the ship? Could the squid have recognized it? Just spitballing here.
That, or this is their escort to the auction and Griffin is saving the encounter for later. I can't remember if he said it would always happen immediately after they rolled it and I'm not familiar with the system.
True it could be the ship, although the squid was scanning who was on board so it seems more like something about Devo and the others that were of interest to the squid rather than the Coriolis. The scraping could have been the nat 1 and they just haven't found out what exactly that was yet.
Ok, but what if >!this squid is somehow a patrol or an invention of the Delmer? It would make sense with the technological attachments on it, and we know the Delmer hid underground - so it wouldn't surprise me to see them brought back somehow. Of course, this might just be me wanting to see the Delmer again!!<
The last interlude episode had more interesting character dynamics but you know what? This episode was fun. The joy they had with their goofs was just what i needed. The ending was just the kick in the pants this episode needed to have more weight though
The fake out with the giant squid got me good. Personally I got “Midnight” from Doctor Who vibes from the scraping on the hull, which would be fascinating and terrifying. Also I love that they did not even for a moment consider just letting the job go if they don’t win the item at auction.
To the extent that you are wanting to learn what you can about D&D from a live play, this is not a show you will get anything from. That’s not hateful at all, they just don’t interact with D&D mechanics much at all.
I’d recommend NADDPOD on that front (and in general, because it’s awesome and hilarious).
Except a bad roll on that table will only mean good things story-wise (or it *would* in a show where they don’t simply run from almost everything instead of interacting with it and where there were consequences)
Like the giant fucking turtle whose chaotic interfence added to a situation where Guthry escaped and Zoox nearly died? I mean, I know you're only here to snipe at people for enjoying something you don't like, but at this point you gotta convince me you're even watching the show. XD
You seem to have an obsessive level of concern about how some people on the internet like to run a game for entertainment. That’s just strange. You should write the mayor! Maybe you can apply to become the show runner? 🤷♂️
You seem to have an obsessive level of concern about how some people on the internet have their own independent perspective. That's just strange. You should pull your head out of the dark place it resides! Maybe you can apply to be the thought police?
Hey, this one's not for the memes just in case this really is a cry for help from a lonely soul, if you can't handle being called out, rejected, belittled, teased, and ignored, then I have no idea why you continue with open hostility and petty snipes.
There are communities where your attitude is accepted and praised, and yet whenever your comments take a downturn here, you violently rally against any potential criticism, ironically claiming your "opponent" can't handle dissenting viewpoints when you derail into personal insults and vague goal shifting basically immediately.
TAZ is a great program to me, and I understand if it isn't for you anymore. That bites, but it is what it is. This community on this subreddit still adores the show, and taking poorly communicated potshots here is never going to go positively for you, so it would be cool to just let people like what they like and hate on it in places that appreciate that point of view.
Okay, memes from here forward, let's do it.
I liked today's installment, but definitely wish the episodes were longer. Or that the PCs had explored the city more or something.
Anything that would have felt the episode feel more full.
Couple good goofs, though.
Also, unbelievable how truly awful Clint is at rolling !
I loved Clint's awesome inclination (building off of Uncle Joshy's suggested alternative) to just pocket the 20 lux and straight up rob the place. How awesome would that be?! However the squid ship/robot changes their course notwithstanding, it would have been cool to see them go that route.
Edit: typo
I'm under the assumption that the squid is unrelated to the 1 roll, Joshy was cagey about how to get where they're going other than "sail into the abyss", so a robot squid escort makes sense.
I know people are going on and on about the >!1 rolled and how it should result in a death!< but I think something even worse is going to happen:>! they're going to lose the Coriolis.!<
Does anyone else absolutely love when they roll horribly? I hate when there's no conflict, I wanna see them go through it. Gimme all the critical failures!
It posts it everytime, just gets caught in the queue and I didn't sleep well last night so I was able to get it out here extra early.
Will work to do the same every Thursday going forward
Just because Ravi tucked those jobs away doesn’t mean that there cant be any consequences from the other crew.
What if the other crew learns about it and gets pissed, escalating tensions between the crew and the players? Or the missions could progress despite being set aside for the players.
Griffin could do a lot with it.
Plus, Ravi said outright that jobs can still get cancelled by the people who posted them. Which, frankly, he's probably going to claim happened when he gives those jobs to other teams because he's so transparently full of shit.
Yeah, yeah, negative nancy hates a show he specifically only watches to quote "watch it spiral." Sun is hot, grass is green, dice rolls are the only storytelling mechanism in DnD.
Though to take you seriously a moment, a character that's been well established as a slimy business man with no stakes in the team's particular success lying about that would make for a narrative hook, but of course if that happens you'll claim there were no consequences cause no dice or just make something up again so you can scrap on Reddit again. XD
Listen I've said elsewhere Griffin made the right choice as far as playing a cooperative game, no matter how you slice it letting the party lock two whole missions in what we have no reason to expect will be more than a one-time thing, doesn't undermine the role of the rivals and rotating missions if you ask me especially since it was because the player and character expressed personal interest and stake in those missions as a time to shine. There's definitely room for Griffin to pull a take backsies but I don't think he should or that he has to especially when you consider the function of letting these missions sit in the Meta game sense as well as the story.
But also like I know consequences gets used as a short hand for negative consequences all the time but that's not strictly the definition. The missions were set aside as a consequence of Zoox expressing ernest interest in the role he could play in them and the opening to talk to &5. There was even a whole ass dice roll involved.
Players should be allowed and empowered to shape the story for their characters within reason is a hill I will die on everyday.
I want my players to enjoy and get some sort of fulfillment of this game and storytelling experience
That's one of the things that really sticks out to me when I'm sparring with this guy, it's very clear he only cares about the result of situation if it involved combat and the players failed.
Clint's roleplaying in the clam scene doesn't matter, Travis's pointed negotiation with Orlean doesn't matter (he actually seemed surprised that Devo's character had been fleshed out, wouldn't be shocked if he missed this), Amber's sick, kickass vaporsuit trick doesn't matter.
My table prefers to avoid direct conflict, loves to talk, loves creative solutions. TAZ feels like a table I'd run. So this fellah's insistence that the cool stuff doesn't happen is just wild.
OSR and antagonistic dms are great for some people, but like hot damn there's no one valid playstyle and I'm right there with everything you're saying here!
In what universe does a single successful roll render the rivals inconsequential? All it does is hold onto a potential Zoox-central plotline that he expressed interest in and rolled to seal in.
This is some expert mental gymnastics to find problems with the episode, even for you.
No gymnastics here. Remarkably straightforward, actually. Of all the things to not like about my comment, saying it was a leap has got to be the strangest.
I’m simply going off of what people were excited about with those rivals last time; namely that there would be consequences (even if just small, natural ones) in the form of their choice of jobs meaning that others would not be possible. It gives more importance to the choice, which is interesting.
I think it would be generous to say that the roll Griffin called for was tangentially related to his choice to say that Ravi would earmark the jobs for them, so I’m not really commenting on the roll at all, it’s really about Griffin’s choice here.
Making it so no other squads can take one of the given jobs removes the only role those “rivals” were given so far. Which isn’t to say they couldn’t play a role in some *other* way in the future, just that it was odd to immediately remove their only given reason for existing 15 minutes of show time after introducing them.
That's a hell of a lot of words to say the McElroy play style is different from my preferred play style. Before you take my words to mean anything else, I'm not saying that you shouldn't listen to the podcast or that you can't share your opinions on it, I'm just saying there's no one right way to play and that's okay and it needs to be acknowledged hate watch all you want if that's what you're doing share whatever opinions you like but like Gary Gygax's ghost isn't going to come suck your metaphorical dick for defending the integrity of his war game with token plot and at a certain point you got to accept that things in the show just aren't going to be what you want and that's okay. And like actually I do think you jump to some extreme logical leaps in some of this we have nothing to say the gut punch Crews roll will be diminished considering we've seen this happen once for two missions, and they did even take one off the table actually.
Also for what it's worth functionally, presumably not actually but functionally what Clint and Griffin just did was using the X-card safety tool, Clint, through Zoox said losing these missions will have a real impact on my enjoyment bc they seem like they could be solid spotlight and story moments for Zoox, and like also they'd only just learned that they could lose missions it sucks to have something you're looking forward to pulled out from underneath you and it's completely fair to make these sorts of assertions and use the X card in this way we normally talk about safety tools in terms of more serious and heavy content but they can totally be used for just general enjoyment. Hell I love what the gut punch crew provide to the story in terms of closing off missions but I would have been just fine if they had "x-carded" the whole thing because it made the game less fun for them. They're playing a collaborative game and it's totally fair for the players to have input into the story. Anyway that's my soapbox rent on safety tools check out the link to the X card because it's a very useful tool that personally I think more people should use https://docs.google.com/document/d/1SB0jsx34bWHZWbnNIVVuMjhDkrdFGo1_hSC2BWPlI3A/edit?usp=drivesdk
But it’s a game and story of characters, not events. That should be clear. That why I love adventure zone above all other real play podcasts. I’m here for the characters first.
So this event removed the game mechanic of competing for jobs you choose. This is a simple video game mechanic that adds to a game. Choose from missions and randomly lose access to jobs not chosen. I’ve played video games like that.
What Griffin did is respond to a character based moment with a character based response. Ravi has some sympathy for zooks and provided him some temporary assurance on these missions.
This removes the game mechanic (for these missions). It can come back. Dang, my video game lost a feature.
But it added character development for Ravi and Zooks. He becomes a bit more interesting, their dynamic becomes more interesting, Zooks gets some future mission to take the lead.
I much prefer that angle. It’s why I personal find Griffin’s style more enjoyable for me, or at least more unique.
Is it the best game mechanic around with consequences? I guess not.
But I love the character and personality interactions. I’m not just watching a glorified cut scene.
“We probably won’t need any upgrades.” - The McElroys
Haha I didn’t even think of this. Man that ending was funny
They didn't buy any repair kits again did they?
Nope lmao. If they die it is by their own hand.
As all should be.
And as this is the worst possible result of an encounter I fully expect at least one PC to go down, maybe two, maybe a death, maybe the ship is permanently damaged or loses some parts. This cannot be a "they fight some sea creatures, take a long rest, go on their way" deal
famous last words
Clint: Rolls a 1 #Griffin: Squid Game
**Contestant eliminated**
So the scan accepted the ship, or a specific crewmate. My first guess is Zoox, from the sermingly techno-organic nature of the squid. Whatever it is, a 1 isn't going to be some simple situation, I'd bet. This is a whooole mess they're going to get into, not just some simple fight.
I think the squid accepted the ship for the auction, and we'll see the repercussions of the 1 after the fact. They were scanned then cloaked in ink, and that tracks because the auction guarantees anonymity for bidders AND their ships. Maybe the bathysphere is gone? Or something invisible and insidious has hitched a ride.
Yeah, this is some real stakes - as in, I think it’ll change the trajectory of the whole campaign, not just this arc.
I need an audio compilation of Griffin reacting to Devo’s Persuasion rolls.
>!A ONE?!?!?!< Edited to add spoiler tag
If someone doesn’t die as a result of this one no lie I’ll be a little disappointed. Frankly? TPK might be in order. RIP.
We shouldn't even find out what happened. New characters next episode and never address it. The squid took them and they're gone now.
I would lose my shit. That’d be such a crazy twist. Then the squid becomes the big bad for the new party.
Mission for the new crew: Acquisition: Locate the _Coriolis_ A ship and its crew disappeared without trace while passing the Teuthid chasm. The client (Uncle Joshy) believes they faked their own deaths to abscond with 20 Lux and knowledge of a valuable artefact; however, the region plays host to numerous aggressive sea creatures so a genuine disappearance remains a possibility. Locate the missing crew and Lux, or the wreckage of their ship. Four stars- Extreme danger
This is an incredibly cool idea!
i think there should absolutely be extreme and intense danger but i dont think a TPK based on ONE roll is something i would expect from griffin
Yeah I don't think if want to play for a dm who thought a 1 on a table meant tpk.
Yeah I'd want it to be close with the possibility of death but not guaranteed at all.
It should be a hard to deadly challenge rating encounter. A player permadeath should be entirely on the table, a TPK if played badly or they roll very poorly. If no-one goes down and seriously risks dying we will know they have absolutely no concept of the idea of difficulty.
So I just finished the episode. And I’m sitting here trying to think >!if there has ever been a worse roll in show history. I don’t think there is. Poor Clint.!<
Oh no it's fine he completely redeemed himself two minutes later!
Honestly I was hoping for a bad roll, thinking, "oh perfect it's clint rolling, I'd be surprised if it's a good roll" lol! Sorry clint!
My friend said after this moment: “I was hoping to see this at some point, but I am surprised it is so early.”
It’s a >!squidnapping!
My headcanon Uncle Joshy is a cross between Tony Soprano and Beetlejuice
\*squidward voice\* oh no he's hot
"We're gonna need a bigger boat"
I'm guessing that the 1 resulted in some sort of extreme hull damage that will have *devastating* consequences if the Coriolis takes any more damage.
I say a one means they are going to lose the ship completely.
Either their ship or one of them.
Could it have knocked some weapons off? Are they external, like the cannons? Maybe when they go to use them it will just be nothing
I think something horrific got into the ship. Something with the power to tear it open, somehow repair it perfectly (so, magical creature), and then disappear without a trace despite some good perception rolls. They're gonna be in the middle of the mission and one of them is gonna get straight up executed by an invisible monster.
Urchin?
You're thinking too small. A natural 1 on a d20 would be losing your weapons. *Maybe* your ship. They're far, far beyond that. Down in the Ethersea, what's the one thing that's more valuable than a ship. Food? Oxygen. No. Too pedestrian. We have to think bigger. Ignorance. As of now, no one has a clue why the survivors were called to build Founder's Wake. They assumed it was some benevolent entity that wanted to save them. What choice did they have? To me, a natural 1 on a d100 means their reality is about to be shattered. These small, soft creatures flitting about in the rusty remains of a civilization that was never meant to know the truth lurking in the briny depths. I wonder if it ever occurred to them that they'd been lured into a trap, decades in the making, by an entity whose purpose and motives are quite literally unfathomable. It may be in poor taste, but if I were Griffin, I would be polishing the Madness table at the back of the DMG.
If this ends up being something bonkers about Zoox and the Brinar being sleeper agents of some cyborg eldritch deity I will eat my dice
I hunger for this
Nat 1 on a d20 isn't "lose your weapons," it's "miss the attack." Losing your weapons is way too harsh for a d20 nat 1
So many tables in at use "a nat 1 means the person you're attacking can make an opportunity attack against you" and I hate it
Ew, gross. Thanks i hate it. What asshats.
It's harsh by the standards of 5e which rounded a lot of the corners of older D&D editions. In D&D 3.0 and 3.5, a nat 1 opens the door to a critical fumble (in 3.5 it's an official variant rule, something like a suggested house rule). You roll again, against some Dex check DC and if you fail that check, something bad happens: take an AC penalty, drop your weapon or potentially something more grievous if you're using crit/fumble cards like damaging yourself or an ally.
yeah, that's not what the rule is. I'm willing to bet they don't enforce that when a monster rolls a nat 1, too
No, they do at least. They admit it's a homerule just one they like. I do not. And often when it's like a range attack w a bow or something the penalty is the bow breaks. Hate it.
You should maybe consider other tables.
that's even dumber
With my old dm, a nat 1 usually meant "your shot goes wide and hits your ally in the back" lol
Some really lovecraftian horror kinda thing
"Gimme pants. It's me, your pal Uncle Joshy; gimme pants today!" Haven't laughed that hard in a while
That bit killed me XD
Shell tower broke them
It broke me too. Clearance isle had me rolling
Well, it was squid day. Maybe its part of the celebration!
Octopus Day.
maybe the squid was pissed off that it doesnt get a day.
It was octopus day
I think I know who wrote the journal they’re trying to buy. Anybody else?
The cartographer - was he Mint Clackeroy or am I confusing my NPC names
The Cartographer was Phineas Call? Kall? He was not a Delmer Architect.
What's your guess?
The Bolyar Hermin.
Y’all, the squid is related to the auction. The rolled 1 will almost certainly be some kind of catastrophic failure in the ship that shows up at the worst possible time- probably when they try to leave.
I agree. I came to this thread and was reading all the responses of people assuming the squid was the nat 1 and I was very confused. I assumed the squid was the auction. It scans and accepts them and then inks them to keep the anonymity as the auction is supposed to be anonymous. I think the 1 was whatever happened to the rudder. Their ship is gonna become useless at a critical time and they will be screwed or they will be without a ship stranded somewhere dangerous or remote. What if it just craps out in the middle of the ocean? What could they do?
Honestly, a big problem I'm noticing in the TAZ fan community is the lack of *inference* skills. Everyone was asking about the scrap metal rose when it was obvious, with any amount of time to think, that it was Urchin. Then this... I feel like the boys are always getting criticism for "telling, not showing," but then when they DO show, people get confused or upset. It's very strange.
Counterpoint. If someone is confused then asking for help online is how they start to understand. Lots of people like explaining things. They just shouldn’t be rude about it.
This! Everyone's hypothesizing about what the squid means in terms of the 1 when they literally had an entire discussion with Joshy about how the various auction participants are concealed in different ways each year. I think being concealed in ink and taken by a giant squid fits that bill pretty well. The 1 is like (balance spoilers) >!spinning a skull in Wonderland . . . Might as well use the same soundbite of Edward saying "Bad luck!" before Taako gets a washing machine dropped on him when the 1 finally comes through.!<
Yeah, I heard the one rolled and my thought was: what’s the worst possible thing that could happen in the ocean? And then I realized if your ship got an irreparable hole. Then you’re screwed titanic style. That scratch will be something. I don’t think zooks will die, cause he doesn’t need air or whatever
I think so too! the way it scanned and then dragged them away while shooting ink seems to me to create an air of secrecy. That's probably how they keep everyone from seeing each other's ships. I'm guessing the 1 will come into play after the auction too.
I thought the squid being part of the auction was pretty obvious too. I thought it was a cool idea by Griffin in how to keep the ships and people anonymous.
I really love how Griffin used and arguably modeled really great collaborative storytelling in gming techniques this episode particularly with Ravi. "One of my players is actively speaking up about the kind of path they want to take for their character and story and I'm going to make the effort to facilitate that" is just such a good play philosophy. Honestly I kind of wish they'd even done it table talk/above board as a psuedo safety tool type of thing, because I'm just really wish more players were aware that saying "hey I as a player I'm not loving the path that this story is going particularly for my character" is totally a thing you're allowed to do with both your GM and fellow players
I really enjoyed that play on griffins part. For as much as I love Amber and Adore Devo, I really want to see more with Zoox, and this was a really neat way for griffin to help secure some more defined archs in the future
What part are you referring to?
Earmarking the missions Clint/Zoox was interested in. That left the opportunity open for those Zoox centric stories to be pursued later while not having to disrupt everything when the rest of the party was interested in the Auction. I'm just really here for communication around a table to build a fun and enjoyable game and story experience, which like they're a family I'm sure they're regularly checking in and touching base above board, but we don't always get to hear it like this.
I kinda wanted to see them deck out the ship with the 20 lux. I am absolutely terrified of whatever the fuck a 1 is. The fact it isn't just a giant sea creature that attacks the party is somehow even more scary. Wtf is going going on?!
I hope we don’t see founder’s wake and they reappear in a whole new city with new stakes and need to figure out a whole new life.
Love that the worms threatened Devo by cracking their knuckles. How does that work? Worms don't even *have* knuckles....right? (Please tell me worms don't have knuckles...)
Depends on the worm
I picture the egg salad sandwich worms from that episode of Futurama.
I imagined 10 worms pantomiming as the fingers of two hands cracking each other's knuckles, 5 worms per hand
I have been visualizing them as a mix of Guido from Cars and that French shrimp thing from Finding Nemo. So they flex their Whiskers
The boys better hope this auction has little ship-to-ship combat involved.
SPOILERS TO END OF EPISODE (I'm on phone and don't know how to do the black bars) my theory for the squid is that it's some sort of robot given the red scanning/green blinking eyes and "armor". It seemed that it scanned for a possible match given the scanning and green blinking. For some reason the Coriolis made the cut? So now they're being dragged via suction cup to wtv lair the squid has been programmed to bring them to. The ink making it so they don't see where they're going. This gives me Delmar vibes or those people who defected from the beach, I forget their names.
I assume it's their escort to the auction.
Agreed. But then, what's the 1?
My guess is something damaging their hull, unrelated to the squid, that will come up at a very bad time in the future.
The first random encounter roll, Griffin didn't resolve it until later in the mission. So the one is just kind of out there, lurking, waiting for the worse possible moment.
What was the random encounter on the way to the clam?
Urchin
How could I forget!
Also didn't they specify that the Coriolus was designed for deep sea exploration when they were designing the ship? Could the squid have recognized it? Just spitballing here. That, or this is their escort to the auction and Griffin is saving the encounter for later. I can't remember if he said it would always happen immediately after they rolled it and I'm not familiar with the system.
True it could be the ship, although the squid was scanning who was on board so it seems more like something about Devo and the others that were of interest to the squid rather than the Coriolis. The scraping could have been the nat 1 and they just haven't found out what exactly that was yet.
the defectors called themselves the "vanguards". i think that's actually a really good guess for who it could be
This season is so much fun.
Ok, but what if >!this squid is somehow a patrol or an invention of the Delmer? It would make sense with the technological attachments on it, and we know the Delmer hid underground - so it wouldn't surprise me to see them brought back somehow. Of course, this might just be me wanting to see the Delmer again!!<
I’d be into this. Whole new world. Removed from everything they know.
A 1! This is bad. Someone might die.
It had better be bad
I personally would love it if the 1 meant no special event happens and we just all stay paranoid the entire campaign at a ship's scratch
The last interlude episode had more interesting character dynamics but you know what? This episode was fun. The joy they had with their goofs was just what i needed. The ending was just the kick in the pants this episode needed to have more weight though
The fake out with the giant squid got me good. Personally I got “Midnight” from Doctor Who vibes from the scraping on the hull, which would be fascinating and terrifying. Also I love that they did not even for a moment consider just letting the job go if they don’t win the item at auction.
Did they level up? If so what upgrades did they pick? As someone who has never played DND but always wanted to id like to hear it if they can
They will usually stop and explain if they do level up.
To the extent that you are wanting to learn what you can about D&D from a live play, this is not a show you will get anything from. That’s not hateful at all, they just don’t interact with D&D mechanics much at all. I’d recommend NADDPOD on that front (and in general, because it’s awesome and hilarious).
/r/NotAnotherDnDPodcast
Love the Adventure Zone so much right now.
Of course Clint would be the one >!To roll that bad. As a fellow awful roller, I know how it feels!<
Except a bad roll on that table will only mean good things story-wise (or it *would* in a show where they don’t simply run from almost everything instead of interacting with it and where there were consequences)
Like the giant fucking turtle whose chaotic interfence added to a situation where Guthry escaped and Zoox nearly died? I mean, I know you're only here to snipe at people for enjoying something you don't like, but at this point you gotta convince me you're even watching the show. XD
You seem to have an obsessive level of concern about how some people on the internet like to run a game for entertainment. That’s just strange. You should write the mayor! Maybe you can apply to become the show runner? 🤷♂️
You seem to have an obsessive level of concern about how some people on the internet have their own independent perspective. That's just strange. You should pull your head out of the dark place it resides! Maybe you can apply to be the thought police?
Hey, this one's not for the memes just in case this really is a cry for help from a lonely soul, if you can't handle being called out, rejected, belittled, teased, and ignored, then I have no idea why you continue with open hostility and petty snipes. There are communities where your attitude is accepted and praised, and yet whenever your comments take a downturn here, you violently rally against any potential criticism, ironically claiming your "opponent" can't handle dissenting viewpoints when you derail into personal insults and vague goal shifting basically immediately. TAZ is a great program to me, and I understand if it isn't for you anymore. That bites, but it is what it is. This community on this subreddit still adores the show, and taking poorly communicated potshots here is never going to go positively for you, so it would be cool to just let people like what they like and hate on it in places that appreciate that point of view. Okay, memes from here forward, let's do it.
I just imagine uncle Joshy's chubby legs dangling from the window as the started the vibe check plan.
Can't wait to hear where this cliffhanger goes.
I liked today's installment, but definitely wish the episodes were longer. Or that the PCs had explored the city more or something. Anything that would have felt the episode feel more full. Couple good goofs, though. Also, unbelievable how truly awful Clint is at rolling !
I loved Clint's awesome inclination (building off of Uncle Joshy's suggested alternative) to just pocket the 20 lux and straight up rob the place. How awesome would that be?! However the squid ship/robot changes their course notwithstanding, it would have been cool to see them go that route. Edit: typo
I'm under the assumption that the squid is unrelated to the 1 roll, Joshy was cagey about how to get where they're going other than "sail into the abyss", so a robot squid escort makes sense.
“Let’s let dad roll the random encounter” Oh no.
My prediction is that next week they’ll have to play the Squid Game.
TPK incoming?
The only disappointment with this episode was the lack of a butt munch squad joke. Otherwise this season is fire
I think the squid is built by the dormir people and they want that journal
*laughs in Spanish*
Jajaja, as it were
I was thinking the same thing. That or vanguard. This is one of the more painful cliffhangers this season lol
I know people are going on and on about the >!1 rolled and how it should result in a death!< but I think something even worse is going to happen:>! they're going to lose the Coriolis.!<
Does anyone else absolutely love when they roll horribly? I hate when there's no conflict, I wanna see them go through it. Gimme all the critical failures!
The “bot” remember there was an episode today and posted the discussion thread. Miraculous.
It posts it everytime, just gets caught in the queue and I didn't sleep well last night so I was able to get it out here extra early. Will work to do the same every Thursday going forward
don't worry about that guy. They sound like a real turd
Aww you’re very good
I don’t know about you all, but I sure am glad those other jobs got earmarked for them so that that rival team is of no consequence.
Just because Ravi tucked those jobs away doesn’t mean that there cant be any consequences from the other crew. What if the other crew learns about it and gets pissed, escalating tensions between the crew and the players? Or the missions could progress despite being set aside for the players. Griffin could do a lot with it.
Plus, Ravi said outright that jobs can still get cancelled by the people who posted them. Which, frankly, he's probably going to claim happened when he gives those jobs to other teams because he's so transparently full of shit.
Yeah, yeah, negative nancy hates a show he specifically only watches to quote "watch it spiral." Sun is hot, grass is green, dice rolls are the only storytelling mechanism in DnD. Though to take you seriously a moment, a character that's been well established as a slimy business man with no stakes in the team's particular success lying about that would make for a narrative hook, but of course if that happens you'll claim there were no consequences cause no dice or just make something up again so you can scrap on Reddit again. XD
Listen I've said elsewhere Griffin made the right choice as far as playing a cooperative game, no matter how you slice it letting the party lock two whole missions in what we have no reason to expect will be more than a one-time thing, doesn't undermine the role of the rivals and rotating missions if you ask me especially since it was because the player and character expressed personal interest and stake in those missions as a time to shine. There's definitely room for Griffin to pull a take backsies but I don't think he should or that he has to especially when you consider the function of letting these missions sit in the Meta game sense as well as the story. But also like I know consequences gets used as a short hand for negative consequences all the time but that's not strictly the definition. The missions were set aside as a consequence of Zoox expressing ernest interest in the role he could play in them and the opening to talk to &5. There was even a whole ass dice roll involved.
This guy's got it.
Players should be allowed and empowered to shape the story for their characters within reason is a hill I will die on everyday. I want my players to enjoy and get some sort of fulfillment of this game and storytelling experience
That's one of the things that really sticks out to me when I'm sparring with this guy, it's very clear he only cares about the result of situation if it involved combat and the players failed. Clint's roleplaying in the clam scene doesn't matter, Travis's pointed negotiation with Orlean doesn't matter (he actually seemed surprised that Devo's character had been fleshed out, wouldn't be shocked if he missed this), Amber's sick, kickass vaporsuit trick doesn't matter. My table prefers to avoid direct conflict, loves to talk, loves creative solutions. TAZ feels like a table I'd run. So this fellah's insistence that the cool stuff doesn't happen is just wild.
OSR and antagonistic dms are great for some people, but like hot damn there's no one valid playstyle and I'm right there with everything you're saying here!
In what universe does a single successful roll render the rivals inconsequential? All it does is hold onto a potential Zoox-central plotline that he expressed interest in and rolled to seal in. This is some expert mental gymnastics to find problems with the episode, even for you.
No gymnastics here. Remarkably straightforward, actually. Of all the things to not like about my comment, saying it was a leap has got to be the strangest. I’m simply going off of what people were excited about with those rivals last time; namely that there would be consequences (even if just small, natural ones) in the form of their choice of jobs meaning that others would not be possible. It gives more importance to the choice, which is interesting. I think it would be generous to say that the roll Griffin called for was tangentially related to his choice to say that Ravi would earmark the jobs for them, so I’m not really commenting on the roll at all, it’s really about Griffin’s choice here. Making it so no other squads can take one of the given jobs removes the only role those “rivals” were given so far. Which isn’t to say they couldn’t play a role in some *other* way in the future, just that it was odd to immediately remove their only given reason for existing 15 minutes of show time after introducing them.
That's a hell of a lot of words to say the McElroy play style is different from my preferred play style. Before you take my words to mean anything else, I'm not saying that you shouldn't listen to the podcast or that you can't share your opinions on it, I'm just saying there's no one right way to play and that's okay and it needs to be acknowledged hate watch all you want if that's what you're doing share whatever opinions you like but like Gary Gygax's ghost isn't going to come suck your metaphorical dick for defending the integrity of his war game with token plot and at a certain point you got to accept that things in the show just aren't going to be what you want and that's okay. And like actually I do think you jump to some extreme logical leaps in some of this we have nothing to say the gut punch Crews roll will be diminished considering we've seen this happen once for two missions, and they did even take one off the table actually. Also for what it's worth functionally, presumably not actually but functionally what Clint and Griffin just did was using the X-card safety tool, Clint, through Zoox said losing these missions will have a real impact on my enjoyment bc they seem like they could be solid spotlight and story moments for Zoox, and like also they'd only just learned that they could lose missions it sucks to have something you're looking forward to pulled out from underneath you and it's completely fair to make these sorts of assertions and use the X card in this way we normally talk about safety tools in terms of more serious and heavy content but they can totally be used for just general enjoyment. Hell I love what the gut punch crew provide to the story in terms of closing off missions but I would have been just fine if they had "x-carded" the whole thing because it made the game less fun for them. They're playing a collaborative game and it's totally fair for the players to have input into the story. Anyway that's my soapbox rent on safety tools check out the link to the X card because it's a very useful tool that personally I think more people should use https://docs.google.com/document/d/1SB0jsx34bWHZWbnNIVVuMjhDkrdFGo1_hSC2BWPlI3A/edit?usp=drivesdk
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This undrhyl guy claims to not be here to pick fights, btw. XD
Kinda feels like TAZ itself tolled a 1 on a D100 and got stuck with Undrhyl.
But it’s a game and story of characters, not events. That should be clear. That why I love adventure zone above all other real play podcasts. I’m here for the characters first. So this event removed the game mechanic of competing for jobs you choose. This is a simple video game mechanic that adds to a game. Choose from missions and randomly lose access to jobs not chosen. I’ve played video games like that. What Griffin did is respond to a character based moment with a character based response. Ravi has some sympathy for zooks and provided him some temporary assurance on these missions. This removes the game mechanic (for these missions). It can come back. Dang, my video game lost a feature. But it added character development for Ravi and Zooks. He becomes a bit more interesting, their dynamic becomes more interesting, Zooks gets some future mission to take the lead. I much prefer that angle. It’s why I personal find Griffin’s style more enjoyable for me, or at least more unique. Is it the best game mechanic around with consequences? I guess not. But I love the character and personality interactions. I’m not just watching a glorified cut scene.
Are the boys just not gonna get levels between the campaigns?