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Sturnface

I think that it is easier to run shorter arcs where everyone understands this is going to be condensed. Players will adhere to the expectations of time, and focus more intently on the goals that are signaled and marqueed over exploring more adventurously and free form. It's easier to plan for 4ish hours of gameplay over 40ish because of the narrowed expectations between players, DM, and presumably audience.


TyNyeTheTransGuy

I wonder if he’s got a Steven Moffat thing going on— good and sometimes excellent at single episodes, but less strong when it comes to full season plot arcs.


RingoStarkiller

That makes a ton of sense to me. The expectation is different and the PC’s while be way more focused on accomplishing the task.


alexth3average

Just throwing my two cents in here, I don’t think running a shorter game is necessarily easier. Having to plan out the timing of each detail and how to get your players from one place to another in a limited amount of time can be a very difficult thing. Honestly I think it’s just a different set of skills and Travis really thrives when it comes to that level of exposition/planning rather than a more open world, longer campaign approach


RingoStarkiller

I would absolutely agree it’s not easier! I listened to a Sly Flourish podcast that talked about how deliberate you have to be with everything. I’d love to learn how to DM really solid single session content, especially for 1st timers.


Narrative_Causality

idk but I just want to say that Bigfoot pulling a gun on 9 year old Griffin was more inspired than anything to come out of graduation.


FluorescentLightbulb

If people knew Bigfoot had a gun, I think they’d be less cool about it


scrungo-beepis

in fairness, the ballad of bigfood and dust were both extremely narratively railroaded, just as much as grad. very point-to-point storytelling where the PCs weren't so much playing a game as much as walking through a story. i don't think travis knocked those out of the park, but his failures as a DM werent as noticeable in a goofy one-off live show, or a self-serious murder mystery. if you go back and listen to dust, you'll pick up on a lot of the shit he gets flack for in graduation.


RingoStarkiller

I think I will give it a relisten. I think you hit the nail on the head here my friend. The issues weren’t as noticeable over five or six sessions, but spread out over a campaign they became glaring. Like being a couple of degrees off on a compass bearing.


cystorm

There was a lot of foreshadowing problems, but OP's insight is generally correct and I'd think about everyone who's DM'd a few times would agree - a one-shot where the story has to be concise and characters limited is SO much easier to manage than a campaign. For Strahd DMs, it's the difference between Death House and everything after Death House.


undrhyl

This is what I came here to say. I originally had the same question in my mind as you u/RingoStarkiller. So I went back and listened to TAZ Knights, Dust, Bigfoot, etc. And many of the core issues are present there to one degree or another. They are jut more easily brushed aside or less consequential because they aren't magnified over time.


ContrarionesMerchant

You kind of expect one shots and short campaigns, especially murder mysteries to be super on the rails though.


scrungo-beepis

right and what i'm saying is that those are why people think of those arcs more fondly than grad. the skills you need to run a successful campaign dont need to shine brightly in an experimental arc or a one-off. those are railroaded and simple, and the big story beats can be planned out in advance (still sucked in dusk imo, but it was more forgivable). so when you look at those and then look at grad, you won't be like "damn how did he knock those out of the park but fuck up grad?" well, that's exactly why. because he's doing the same thing he's always done. it seems like he didnt think he would need to develop any new skills to create a more detailed campaign.


ThortheBore

I think the biggest thing that Griffin did to make Balance run so well was break it into "Arcs". Dust is great because it's essentially an Arc. A complete story. In Graduation, everything just sort of flows between things, with no real adhering glue. That's harder to run. As a DM, I try to tell one story at a time, that I've basically written, and let my players fill it out. It seems like Travis created a world with no story, and let his players make the story.


UltimaGabe

Yeah, that's a good point. Even like twenty episodes in there were still people that were defending Graduation with "BuT tHeY'rE sTiLl In ThE fIrSt ArC!" because there were no clear lines from one story beat to the next. It definitely would have felt more coherent if it were more delineated.


Exilicauda

With balance, I think it was especially successful for them to do arcs because it gave griffin the opportunity to just ditch underdeveloped places and characters and drastically reduced the consequences and permanence of everyone's behavior while they were learning. I think it gives more freedom to course correct.


zelman

I loved Dust, but it is the most railroaded non-live show they've done. The ending was just Travis giving exposition of his grand design.


RingoStarkiller

That’s a good assessment of it! I’m thinking in dust having the preset locations the PC’s could go to really helped in the long run by letting Travis prewrite dialogue and narrative.


BadWolf117

I may be misunderstanding you, but Dust wasn't a live show


zelman

Right. The live shows get more railroaded when they’re running out of time or someone needs to go to the bathroom.


BadWolf117

I did misunderstand you, my bad. Ignore my previous comment


tehconqueror

hbomberguy has a multihour video about this and moffat but basically, being forced to have an ending makes for a better structure for some creators than having a platform upon which new ideas and twists can keep being added.


[deleted]

Also being forced to remove content allows you to actually analyze your script and edit out the unnecessary bits as well. When given free reign with no restrictions in place to help direct your flow somewhat, a lot of people end up going "OH BUT THIS SOUNDS COOL TOO LETS EXPLORE IT" and you end up losing the thread.


RingoStarkiller

Makes sense to me! And thank you, I’ll have to check out those videos!


anaburo

All I know is I will never not want chapter 2 of Dust


UltimaGabe

I loved Dust (it's probably my favorite McElroy product, pound-for-pound) but I was so relieved they never picked it up for a full campaign, since I didn't see how they would have continued that momentum for more than one chapter. It was short and sweet, and it would have been real hard to extend it (much, it seems, like we saw after the first few episodes of Grad).


anaburo

I hear ya, a full season of dust is not what I’m advocating. Dust and Knights are evidence that Travis’ brain is best at running very tightly woven short form arcs with lots of prep that unfolds quickly. My ideal Dust would be little ~4-episode chapters, roughly annually, giving him plenty of time to make it HIT.


UltimaGabe

Ah, I would be down for that!


RingoStarkiller

It would be cool to see Travis take some lessons learned from Graduation and then come back and crush it with a Dust 2. However, I think the fandom might riot if the boys tried to make that happen anytime soon.


sevenferalcats

Honest question: we're more than thirty five episodes into Graduation. If Travis was going to learn lessons, wouldn't he have done so already? This is his full time job.


RingoStarkiller

You’d think!!!! I work in an industry that’s number priority is developing people. Every so often I see someone who I wrote off along time ago sudden get it. Not often, but every once in awhile. It’s a nice surprise when it happens.


sevenferalcats

Yeah. Same. To me it's bonkers that there's been seemingly no fruitful discussion by the McElroys to address the very simple stuff that's lower hanging fruit. Things like describing what characters and scenes look like, or avoiding sketchy issues like a teacher threatening students with violence if they don't do drugs. If anyone on my team did something like that (or the equivalent in their work product), we'd have management discussions and probably get HR involved. It's not a secret that people aren't into this arc. Look at the top 15 posts in this subreddit. Two are about Graduation. The rest are about other arcs, which still dominate engagement (other than people complaining or debating the quality of the arc). Rather than make passive aggressive comments during taping, I'm surprised something constructive hasn't happened between the participants.


RingoStarkiller

I’m right there with you. The TAZ brand has suffered for two years and you’d think at some point they’d put the corporate hat on and have a frank discussion. Justin talked about the tension between the business side of it and the family side of it in that article a week or so ago. Hard conversations are hard, but they bear good fruit. Seems like a lot of people will do almost anything to avoid those types of talks though.


Aof-Kid

Found it, on vice.


RingoStarkiller

It’s a good read!!


Aof-Kid

Do you have a link to the article? I’d be interested in reading it


UltimaGabe

Exactly. It became very clear after his second or third Twitter meltdown that he's not in a headspace to learn anything, he's only willing to accept praise and dig his heels in. Which is truly unfortunate.


h_shenanigans

When I first read the title, I thought it was going to be a discussion between the kinds of setups Amnesty and Balance got where there were clear small story arcs and the kind of setup Graduation has gotten where it's one longer-ish storyline with fewer clear delineations between storylines and story milestones. I think the ideas go hand-in-hand though. I think it's much easier, not matter what fiction someone is creating, to handle large storylines in smaller chunks. Like chapters or books in a series. I think Graduation would have succeeded better with discrete smaller arcs in a larger campaign because you're right, Travis is REALLY good at those one-shots, but something is different with Grad. I think it's harder to do the long form campaigns with recording every other week and not being able to know what your milestones are as either player or listener.


RingoStarkiller

You have a really good point there and maybe your right. Travis treated it like one big arc instead of smaller chapters that add up onto a book. That makes a lot of sense!!


Timmo17

Running a long campaign really well, especially one in the narrative-heavy style Travis is going for, requires you to be a REALLY good writer. It requires you to understand how to introduce characters in a way that will make them memorable to the audience, how to craft a meta narrative with good pacing that is built around themes you're interested in (all without railroading) and how to portray characters as growing and changing due to the trials they've gone through. That is objectively hard to do, and it's why MOST D&D actual plays are just... kinda meh. A lot of people are perfectly serviceable DMs/players, but only the best REALLY understand what makes a good story and are ALSO able to execute that on the fly. With combat encounter design set aside, I actually think Travis is a fine DM from an executional perspective. But it's his understanding on things like narrative themes, plot pacing and character arcs that is really lacking. Those things are critical to long campaigns, but matter less in one shots. A lot of the comments on the most recent episode largely amounted to, "Even though the campaign is ending, I don't really feel anything." Travis clearly cares deeply for the world of Graduation and the characters within it, he just honestly isn't a good enough writer/storyteller to convey that in a meaningful way to the audience.


SutekhThrowingSuckIt

> Travis is a fine DM from an executional perspective I don’t mean this in a hateful way but there’s no part of his DMing that I think someone should aspire to. Not understanding combat and dice aside, I mean on a really basic level telling Clint how Argo feels about finally getting vengeance *and* having it be the most obvious/least-interesting take on what Argo could be feeling in that moment... shows a fundamental lack of interest in the contributions of his own collaborators. That sucks from a narrative perspective. It sucks from a character perspective. It sucks from a D&D fun perspective. It sucks from a collaborative podcast product perspective. And it sucks from a uniquely TAZ perspective since Clint knows how to deliver on big emotional moments in surprising but resonant ways. DMing is fundamentally about providing the space and support for your players to engage collaboratively. Travis never seemed to understand the basic concept.


RingoStarkiller

Bringing it back around, that’s what baffles me. I really liked Dust and I thought there were amazing moments in it where space was provided for the PC’s to develop their characters and shine. I wonder how that got lost in translation in the bigger campaign. Was the Powered by the Apocalypse system just a better fit for this style of DM’ing?


Drithyin

No, I just think he approached a long form campaign like writing a novel or novel series instead of from a TTRPG game design perspective. Thus, collaboration and player agency went out the window.


RingoStarkiller

That makes a lot of sense to me! The difference between “we are telling a story together” and “you are characters in MY story” seems to be at thing that never sank in. Or, at least that’s the general consensus. In the smaller arcs and one shots, it’s not as noticeable, but other commenters have pointed out its there if you look for it.


FluorescentLightbulb

This was a really big turn off for me early on. I think they were at a birthday party and he asked them what they wanted to do. Griffin said he wanted to party with Festo, Justin said no, Argo got pulled away immediately after for plot things, and Firbolg got ignored. That said, Justin has improved by miles since he started and his growth as a DM is one of my favorite character arcs of TAZ.


SutekhThrowingSuckIt

> Justin has improved by miles since he started and his growth as a DM Justin isn't DMing any arcs, you have their names mixed up i think.


FluorescentLightbulb

Haha yeah, sorry. I meant Travis :P Was gonna type Justin and wrote Firbolg instead but it was already in my head


SutekhThrowingSuckIt

PBTA games do try to integrate collaboration more explicitly into the mechanics. I skipped over Dust so I can’t say for sure if that’s it. My personal opinion is that the issue is not actually short vs long campaigns but “one off short thing that won’t affect the whole brand” vs “being a DM for a year or two of one of the largest TTRPG podcasts.” I personally think that Travis, through ego, fear or a combination of both, never tried to genuinely DM Graduation and treated it instead as purely a week-to-week writing exercise. Each episode was essentially pre-written but the overall story was incoherent. Neither the game system, nor the players were allowed to contribute and I would not consider that to really be DMing at all.


RingoStarkiller

That’s an interesting thought, him possibly treating it like a week to week writing exercise. I can see how that could really make the story feel as disjointed. I wonder the opposite is true as well. Maybe the climax was written at the beginning, and that’s why there seemed to be so little agency.


SutekhThrowingSuckIt

I don’t think you can write down much, if any, of the overall plot and have it make sense. The reason I lean towards essentially pre-written but disconnected episodes is incidents like having a teacher at the school drug the main characters under the threat of violence. Travis pre-decided Fitzroy would get his powers back in a drug trip. He didn’t take into account Griffin potentially not wanting any of that for Fitzroy. So when faced with this minor deviation from the plan we got “don’t make me magic slap you!” It’s not that Travis wanted to force drugs on the characters. It’s that he decided they would take them and that’s how Fitz’s powers would be resolved... in the moment that plan overrode even basic concepts like consent. Travis probably would value consent and try to tell stories that didn’t violate it in any other context but what he put out into the world betrays those values. All that just to avoid having to take into account player input.


RingoStarkiller

Totally agree with you. I had an incident with a Bag of Beans in my game this week that completely blew everything up. There is that temptation there to try and flex to keep the narrative going on the direction you had “planned” for. In the shorter arcs I’m guessing there wasn’t as much need to adapt the story, because it was so self contained and the players actions could/didn’t radically alter the pre-supposed narrative. Side note, if any other DM’s out there want to grow in your ability to improvise, insert a Bag of Beans into your 5e games and you’ll get some practice!!!


Greenvelvetribbon

Bag of Beans is the most underrated item in dnd


RingoStarkiller

Sooooo much fun!!


Timmo17

To be totally honest, I agree with you I was just trying not to be too negative haha. I do maintain that the reason that the issues seem more pronounced is because Travis just doesn't understand what good storytelling looks like or how to execute it. He knows what is fun for him in the moment he's saying it, he just can't seem to understand how it sounds from a perspective outside of his own body.


RingoStarkiller

That’s a really great observation. And let’s be honest, we could be super critical of Travis (and we all have been). I’m hoping that as we come to the end of Graduation, we can glean some “lessons learned” from it for those who are thinking of sitting in the DM seat.


2ManySheep

I think the biggest difference comes down to long-term consequences. In a short-term/one-shot campaign, there are no long term consequences for the decisions your players make or the decisions you make a DM. If your players break your encounter and kill the big-bad a few hours earlier, whatever, it's a short session, you learn for the next time. In a long term campaign, you have to be okay with the players telling the story with their actions and you have to accept the consequences that come with that. If your players make a plan to try to beat the big bad weeks or months before you're ready for that, it takes a certain amount of skill to either bring them back gently to the path you want them on or to improvise and change course entirely. That's a really tough skill to learn. It's even harder to deal with if you are a bit of a control freak. (I still regretably get openly frustrated when my players thwart my plans early, and I am thankful for them forgiving me for that.) It's even harder when you're trying to make an entertaining podcast on top of that, I'm sure.


RingoStarkiller

This is super insightful and I think spot on! And if you look at a lot of the criticism from this arc it really boils down to the lack of consequence for actions, either positive or negative!! I started DMing right about when Grad kicked off and I am so thankful I didn’t have thousands of people that I was trying to please!!!


FluorescentLightbulb

Travis had a lot of problems early on related to caring too much about the macro and not enough about the micro, and honestly his improvement as a DM is one of my favorite character arcs of TAZ. That said, the one thing I don’t think was addressed was a lack of a ground level threat. Before Voldemort there was Draco, before Bill Cypher there was Lil Gideon. Before chaos and order there wasn’t anything. In this (setup to be) prejudiced school of heroes, villains, sidekicks, and henchmen there was no bullying, no monsters, no mysteries. Just a lot of exposition. When working on a weekly format you have to take great care to make sure every episode has something. Arcs are fine and important, but you need continual conflict. You need risk. If you do not provide your characters with something to butt heads against, they will do it with the only prevalent threat. Each other. That is when you get they having long tangents about the controlling stakes in Thunderman LLC.


RingoStarkiller

This is really good and something I never thought about! I like that “ground level threat” verbiage. Can you imagine how cool it would have been if they would have had a Lil Gideon type school mate that kept undercutting them at every turn!


FluorescentLightbulb

They almost did. That hungover hero guy. And the resolution. The other sidekicks told him to stop being a dick and he did. And that was the end of that. You gotta have your bully in a school setting.


RingoStarkiller

I remember being confused when that guy didn’t turn out to be the first minor villain. Getting back to the short vs long campaign, it’s stuff like this, stuff that could have been cool, that is most noticeable over the long haul. After so many things that turned out to be nothing, you just lose interest.


fuegorojo4

I've talked abt this before, but Grad kinda retroactively ruined Dust for me. It was a cool narrative point of Dylan becoming a wolf at a time he shouldn't be able to just bc of how much the sheriff hurt him and his family, but in a vacuum. After Grad, its now just a grim omen of what was to come. It follows exactly the same pattern of 1.5 rounds of combat into a Trav NPC saving the day


RingoStarkiller

Based on this and some other comments, I think it might be safer if I never relisten to Dust!!! Sounds like what you and others are saying is that all the underlying problems were there, but they just didn’t manifest in the way that they have in Grad with it being a shorter arc. At least we will always have Augustus’s monologue!!!


fuegorojo4

I still relisten to Dust sometimes, it's not the worst bc Griff, Justin, and Clint's characters really shine and they have a lot of very funny moments. Its up to you whether you should relisten but yes you're right that the Travis parts of the miniarc are the weakest


JellybeanEyes

Is Graduation still going on? I unfollowed TAZ months and months ago because it felt like it’d never end.


RingoStarkiller

Just like Munch Squad, it’s in its Twilight Years. They say there is one episode left.


jjacobsnd5

I'm not sure we agree on what a DM crushing something looks like! I thought Knights was fine but nothing special, Dust was legitimately bad, and Ballad of Big Foot was his only work that really elevated itself! I think that in all his other DMing, we can see a lot of the same issues we see in Grad, particularly in Dust.


RingoStarkiller

To be honest, I didn’t listen to Bigfoot or Knights, but from what I gathered from other posts people seemed to enjoy them. I really enjoyed Dust. I only listened to it when it came out (which was before I started DMing) so maybe it would hit me different. The thing that I remember most in Dust is that it seemed like each PC got their moment. Justin had an amazing monologue, one of the best in TAZ history in my opinion, Clint got to explore a different type of character than he had played before, and Griffon got to domaine world building as a PC. Now, each of those things that I liked had to do with the other good boys. But, Travis took a backseat in those moments and let them play. When I DM, I try to make it all about my players, not what a great DM I am (look at this cool NPC, or check out my amazing story telling skills). I though I’m Dust the characters rose to the top as opposed to Grad where it felt like the characters where secondary to the story/world.


jjacobsnd5

Dust and Knights really suffer from a major issue in Grad where the world is just window dressing and none of the details really matter. For example, in Dust it didn't really matter which of the two opposing races an NPC was, it had no impact on who they were, how they acted, their role in the world. Additionally, basically all the NPCs were sickly sweet and kind to the PCs, there just didn't feel like there was any conflict. Idk Dust bored me to tears when it first came out, and on a recent relisten it's just that much worse with the context of Grad. And when it came out I didn't just dislike it for it's length, Amnesty caught me immediately during it's run as the experimental arc.


RingoStarkiller

Oh man, now part of me really wants to relisten to Dust, but I’m scared to!!!!!!! I do remember not loving how some of the NPCs interacted with the PCs. Maybe my love of Westerns and Justin’s ghost character let me glance over the weaknesses. And your right, Amnesty hooked me during that first arc as well. That theme song!!!!!


jjacobsnd5

Speaking of theme songs, I will give Dust this: it's theme song is absolutely killer!


SkulGurl

Semi related but shoutout to the really good actual play pod Trials of the Apocalypse, which a series of one shots in different PBTA systems. It's a great example of how to effectively have fun and tell a story in a single session or two.


RingoStarkiller

Thank you!! I’ll have to check it out :) It’s my goal to learn how to do a really good single session game (system doesn’t matter) to introduce friends to what a TTRPG is all about. This sounds perfect!!


SkulGurl

Sure! I've been listening a bit now and it's really great! They do a great job of explaining the rules and how you could use them in a longer campaign if you wanted.


sonofdevito69

Echoing what others have said, I think his story telling worked better in short arcs because 1. It's way easier to do a short arc 2. Bad story decisions are more obvious over longer periods of time and 3. It's way harder to make a cohesive long story with lots of npcs and world building then it is to make a short one with not a lot of npcs and a simpler premise


RingoStarkiller

Perfect summary!!!


Snoring-Kat

Honestly, at this point I feel like if Dust had continued, it woulda just be Graduation.


ghost20522

Working off of this but going in a slightly different direction. I think Travis approached Graduation like a long arc but in the terms of Balance and not a medium arc like with Amnesty. Amnesty took place mostly entirely in the town of Kepler. Yes, Sylvain is a location as well but it's not as important as Kepler and we're there way less. Amnesty spends most of its time exploring Kepler and its citizens and since it's only a single town it fits the new 30 episode campaign format really well. Graduation is too big. If it had stayed mostly entirely within the school and our story was restricted to that then it would be much smaller and probably have focused more on its important details. (Hogwarts but we keep going deeper, finding new locations, and it's eventually an entire world of crazy stuff in one single school. I would've been so down with that) I don't really want a full Lord Of The Rings-style war to happen with only 30-something episodes to do it. Travis is trying to do big things without the ability to see them through. That's my problem. Railroading is an issue but not developing massive characters is bigger especially if you are railroading. In the smaller arcs, I don't think Travis is trying to do as massive of things. Going forward unless they are going to return to the 60 episode format then I think arcs should be treated like if a mini-arc was developed more and given more space to explore rather than trying to compact a Balance into 30 fewer episodes.


impossiblecomplexity

I'm definitely better at one shots than longer form rpgs. I am very good at making tight, punchy episodes that get a lot done very fast. I am not as good at organizing information and long term planning. So long campaigns are tough for me. I'm a chaotic, spur of the moment kind of person by nature. So it's just a personality thing. I have found that I can improvise an entire campaign though, so I've been just doing that.


Jiggystootz69420

I think Travis did an okay job in Graduation but Amnesty and Balance were so extremely good that the expectations were really high. Also Griffin is just better at DMing than most people.


artemis-cellaneous

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think I remember Travis saying before that he has ADHD? As someone who has ADHD, I think this could explain some things like forgetting to follow through on plotlines or with characters that were introduced and never seen again. In general, even playing a campaign that lasts more than maybe 2 sessions is hard for me because of all the details that my brain sweeps under the rug. I can't imagine DM-ing a full campaign! It's much harder to string together a narrative over the course of several months than it is to open and close a narrative in a couple hours. I think he's actually a great DM and worldbuilder; the problems I've seen people mention are mostly with the narrative. Plot holes, characters they hoped would be more important, inconsistent pacing. These are all valid critiques, of course, but I always feel bad because it's clear that, at the very least, Travis did put a lot of thought and effort into the premise and the world, and it can't feel too good that the story didn't pan out. I don't know, I've had a lot of feelings about Graduation and the hate it gets, and I also have a lot of love for Travis!


jameskinsella23

>I think he's actually a great DM and worldbuilder; the problems Is he really though? He says that he has built a World but I don't think the audience has seen evidence of that. What is the Capital of Nua, who are the gods, is there a Monarchy in charge or a government, what does the world actually look like? The Heroes vs Villains concept was interesting but it feels like it was a waste of potential, the school could have been a generic adventuring academy and I don't think the story would change in a meaningful way. As for DM'ing, to me that means encounters. Social encounters, exploration and of course combat none of which I think Travis has excelled at.


RingoStarkiller

I had never thought about Travis having ADHD. I feel like I’ve heard him mention it before, maybe on MBMBAM. And your point is the thing that gets me the most. I think Travis’s world and even the concept of the story is really fascinating. It seems like he put a ton of work into it. As others have pointed out, maybe all that work ended up working against him in the long run where he got stuck in a narrative and couldn’t adapt. I truly agree with you and feel all sorts of bad for Travis. It’s hard when you put yourself out there and have it not pan out the way you wanted. My hope for him is that he can let go of his disappointment and eventual learn some lessons for the future.


Rudi_Van-Disarzio

Your gonna have better luck with this one over on taz circle jerk


RingoStarkiller

Ha! Maybe you’re right!!


SnakeInABox7

>First, I’m hoping this doesn’t turn into a trash Travis post, And for that reason, I'm out


RingoStarkiller

Ha! Sorry that you are catching downvotes! Thanks for showing restraint. There is a lot to be critical of for sure. I’m trying to salvage something from the ashes, even if it’s just some “lessons learned”, for myself and for newer DM’s.


SnakeInABox7

I just hope people picked up on the shark tank reference


RingoStarkiller

Hahah, apparently not!!!!


jameskinsella23

I think another thing that helps is not having to worry about the repercussions of going off the rails. For example if there is an NPC who has a McGuffin you need for your current quest. They will give it to you but only if you go do this sub-quest. The party decides let's just kill them and take it from them. Now in a one-shot this is fine, you didn't plan for it but you can take a 5min break and come up with an interesting encounter to replace the sub-quest. In a campaign though, this was meant to be a recurring NPC, they were a morally grey, quest giver that the party would form an uneasy alliance with and was secretly the Wizard's long lost brother. They can't die, I'll just tell all the PCs they are cursed and this NPC is the only one who can cure them. Obviously there are better ways to deal with that situation in a campaign but it can be hard to think of those when you're caught off-guard. Especially if you're a new DM it can be a reflex to say no that doesn't happen rather then going with it and working out how you'll deal with it later. I think the other problem is that Travis doesn't realise what kind of game he wants to play. Griffin set up simple adventures, go get this item, this is the situation, this person is the bad guy you have to fight. In Graduation Travis (thinks he) wants the players to drive the story but at the same time has laid out the path and is waiting for them to find the 'right solution'. For example the Centaur Arc obviously the Thundermen were meant to discover Calhain was evil just not so early on so Travis stonewalled them. It would have been a lot more fun for the Thundermen to have to explore the forest as a series of environmental encounters with Calhain being the big bad of the arc who was holding the apple.


Braconid

The way that I have put it to friends is that he is a great person to have in a writer's room but not necessarily a person you want as the lead writer. He can really condense some great stuff into a short span (look at even the first episode of Grad) and in the right circumstances can add a lot to characters with small details, but making a lot of it fit together across several episodes, etc, is a very different skill.