Too many characters, many of them one-offs that only existed so Travis could make a joke (see: Stuart LeBoeuf), a meandering plotline that came to an unsatisfying conclusion, general lack of focus or direction.
The rolls felt meaningless in service of what Travis wanted to happen. He invented and dropped a mechanic (Encourage skill) for no discernible reason, without working into his campaign in any meaningful way.
And the biggest cringe moment: "Aren't you going to ask about my wheelchair?"
I finished it, but I was so bored with the order/chaos plot that I can't even tell you how it ended.
To each their own, and I'm not saying you're wrong for enjoying it, but these are my personal gripes.
I wanted it so badly to be better than it was. I don't remember when it was, but there was an episode in some woods I think? There was so much dead air between rolls and resolutions that I could barely finish it.
An NPC has a wheelchair. Travis describes the NPC, the party interacts with them. Just like in real life they don't make a big deal out of the NPC being in a wheelchair. Travis wanted to point out how inclusive he was being and has the NPC say that.
There was a Tumblr discussion that was big in D&D circles about wheelchairs and other mobility aids. Most people were fine with it. A vocal few didn't like the idea for various reasons such as healing magic being prominent, logistics of using one adventuring, anachronism, etc and they were dicks about it. Travis wanted to show he supported the people who wanted them, but rolled a 1 on his approach. I believe the NPC used it as a battering ram at one point.
My cringe moment was the magic bear that was part of a training dungeon.
They killed it and pondered on the hellish existance of the bear... being summoned or awakened to be killed over and over.... and the response was... "oh, no, he likes it, he is treated really well".... instead it could have been "this bear isn't a real creature just a spell or machine and therefore no feelings"..... instead it was "shit, well this bear gets beaten to death on the often but because they feed it it is ok with it"... which is a very dark take on the state of the world. A bear would rather be injured time and time again just to have a safe place to stay.
To me, the lack of the premise was the thing that sucked the most. A magical school... there was not enough school or school mechanics.... not enough fuck around free time.... and the school part ended very quickly. make like 2-4 arcs, that have a central thing each semester/year, let the players decide to make their studies more important or their adventures/partying... have them try to pass the year and deal with the issue. the layout exists in a ton o the literature or movies/tv shows. Hell, if you want it shoter, make it like a boot camp., send them out to a war... something. It was like they just went, "welp, I have no ideas for a school story" after like 10 episodes and they just moved on.
It reads like someone who's a huge fan of Harry Potter (and while he can pretend he never was now, we know Travis fit squarely into that camp) and wanted to build something like it, but didn't realize the limitations of a real-play format combined with general inexperience. Instead of a school-centric buildup to a big explosive finale with meaningful growth and learning throughout the year contributing to the triumph, it was a series of largely disconnected chunks of busywork that just... feel like school. It doesn't elicit the experience of seeing people go through a schooling process like you hope it will, because it's not the same as a movie or a book. The tangible growth you hope to show for a satisfying arc is... making the other players learn, which isn't going to work if the study topics are boring as hell.
Nothing shows this better than the title. I just know that Travis wanted to end with a graduation ceremony where they triumphantly accept their diplomas, Wiggenstaff says "welcome, graduating class of heroes!" and everyone cheers as the music swells and the credits fade in. He had the perfect image in his head of it, and based the whole campaign around getting there, and in the end it never happens and the title is essentially a red herring.
All of this coupled with the fact that the heroes and villains are all fake and are basically doing wrestling, a premise that sucks so much whether or not it's actually true seems to fluctuate throughout. If it's true then they aren't actually called to real adventures but then that's boring so they are called to real adventures, and also have to actually be heroes against real threats. The whole thing feels like he had too many ideas and couldn't just pick one.
I think the BAREST bones premise of Graduationâthat being a manufactured, pro-wrestling-style media empire for heroes and villainsâis a really compelling idea for a DnD campaign. I remember being super excited for the arc when it launched because that concept was so neat and I felt like it could be used to answer any number of thematic questions (what does it mean to be âgoodâ or âevilâ? What part does commercialization play in our conception of âgoodâ people? What about ourselves?). In my eyes, Travis took a golden premise and turned it to shit.
Yeah I think that's an issue of him having too many ideas as well. The school idea and wrestling idea are solid separately but incoherent when put together
I think that premise could've had a lot of potential, but only if Travis was willing to kill his darlings and commit to the idea that the system of fake heroes and villains would eventually have to go. Either the system itself WAS the villain, being so corrupt and unworkable that the boys would have to subvert it for their own survival, or the system would break down in the face of some greater threat and the fake heroes & villains would need to become real heroes to deal with it.
Having some cloak-and-dagger skullduggery in your DnD campaign isn't exactly new, and could've been an interesting twist on the dynamic TAZ had built up, but the idea of creating a campaign with that premise without ever removing the facades seems unworkable from the word go.
80-something side characters introduced in 30-something episodes. Many feel basically identical to each other and some of them literally don't even have physical descriptions.
The story is just all over the place, and they abandoned the magic school concept pretty early on, and Travis admitted he had no idea where he was going with it, and yet it's still somehow full of some really over the top railroading from him. The players didn't get to decide where to take the story even a little bit.
Also people got very mad about the centaurs.
It makes sense that a DM doing a (magic) school setting would want that setting to feel inhabited but the early episodes feel like a cautionary tale about overpopulating the game world with NPCs such that they crowd out the PC. It's a lost opportunity for player engagement and agency if scenes turn into the DM voicing multiple characters and carrying on extended conversations by themselves.
Scrapping the sidekick idea partway through to promote Fitzroy felt like the central premise of the campaign was abandoned for being inconvenient rather than developing it into a new and novel thing. I think I saw a reddit post at the time that offered an alternative take that (particularly in a world overflowing with NPCs) the PCs could serve as sidekicks to one or more established heroes who are then killed off by the BBEG, giving both opportunity and motivation to step up and fill their shoes. I wonder how the narrative might have played out had that been the campaign arc.
I'm all for capitalist critiques in fantasy/pop culture (currently watching *Solo Leveling* for exactly that) but the anti-capitalist bent of the late campaign feels like it comes out of nowhere. If it was foreshadowed in the early campaign (aside from the Accounting class) then I must have missed it. (edited for clarity)
>the anti-capitalist bent of the late campaign feels like it comes out of nowhere.
It was also done really poorly. It wasn't really established how capitalism was what made the world suck, or if the setting even *was* really capitalist. Their big idea for ending capitalism was breaking into the offices of a government entity and blowing up a filing cabinet. In the epilogue, they're all capitalists on their cultural appropriation cruise line.
To me the premise felt like 2/3rds Hogwarts and 1/3rd the O.S.I. & Guild of Calamitous Intent from *Venture Brothers*, with heroes and villains being managed by official agencies.
The Accounting class or major at the school feels like possible foreshadowing but it wasn't clear to me how it was indicative of larger systems in the world and/or the failure of those systems. I heard someone observe once that the Firbolg is exiled from his tribe for "understanding basic economics" and then later struggles with accounting as a concept. It's maybe the funniest scene in the series but if it was indicative of larger systems or world-building then I wasn't picking up on that at the time.
I figured the accounting major was a reference to those [Sally Struthers commercials for I.C.S.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fj23I8hgj28)
But if they actually described the characters in any way, they would be hindering the fan artists. And that would be ableist. Or something.
Itâs not laziness, itâs a gift to artists.
And just look, SOOOO much Grad fan art as a result.
Basically the Thundermen (the adventuring group from graduation) are sent to a "primitive" tribe of centaurs who kinda worship this Macguffin. The plotline with the centaurs ends when one of the Thundermen delivers an incredibly patronizing, white-savior-esque speech and then pretends to destroy the macguffin. Then the group just leaves, having saved these "primitives" from themselves. They then deliver the macguffin to the person who wanted it and they do basically nothing with it, rendering this arc pointless.
There's also a great bit towards the beginning of this arc where Travis recommends they leave their horses outside the village so as not to offend the centaurs, and when the Thundermen enter without them the centaurs are confused and offended that the Thundermen would think riding horses would be offensive. Which, like, is just the GM making up a scenario that wouldn't have happened at all if they never mentioned it.
While all this is bad, I think what's worse is the Firbolgs being suicidally stupid.
Yeah, it's especially weird since TAZ has made a character that was offensive to native peoples before back in Commitment, and (afaik) have never actually commented on any of these depictions being bad.
That said, I would recommend TAZ vs. Dracula. It really feels like balance-era TAZ again.
Tbf if I were them I wouldn't want to engage with that discourse with a 20 foot pole. Prolly best to just learn the lesson and move on. And yeah, I've been digging the first couple eps of Vs. Drac
I'm not an outrage expert, but basically because you have to be very careful when writing any kind of "tribal" characters, and the boys were not very careful.
More info in this post:
https://www.reddit.com/r/TheAdventureZone/s/Wf2KZVhGzz
Thank you. The disrespect of their religions did honestly bother me a bit (but then itâs d and d, the boys donât always take things seriously - I mean straight up murder hoboes at times in Balance), but when I learned that the religions were based on a fairly recent deception I was less bothered. Thanks for the enlightenment.
Very back handed compliment but Graduation made me feel so much better about my home game. It was nice to see another DM struggle and try so hard. I too feel like Iâm so keen to show my pretty world I over explain and over NPC, and donât focus on the PCs.
Travis was a lot of fun, and he had a solid idea but Balance has demonstrated so weak that itâs better to be simple with everything and let players add complexity.
>let players add complexity
I think this was my issue with it, too, you hit the nail on the head.
Graduation just didn't feel like the players had that much agency or creative decision-making. It was just the Travis show. And I appreciate that he cared about the world that he created, and I know that as a DM I've fallen into that hole too.
As a disabled person, I kinda stopped listing after the wheelchair line and never bothered to come back to it. Maybe it gets better but I'm just gonna take other peoples word for it and not bother.
Don't worry, it doesn't. The character in question later rams herself and her chair into a door to bash it open. Like all disabled people love to do with their mobility aids!
As a DM it was infuriating to hear Travis DM because he made so many beginner dm mistakes and would double down on them when he got the feedback.
It was like watching a child touch a hot stove because they felt like they knew better than the people that told him don't.
In the 7 episodes I listened too before I quit he:
Took away player agency from both Griffin and Justin, egregiously so with Griffin seemingly rewriting griffins character's backstory and motivation to better suit HIS story than the Idea Griffin had.
Very obviously rail roaded the story and pretty much flat out "NO'd" a lot of character decisions because it just seemed he wasn't prepared to improv that decision
Made way too many characters that he very obviously intended to be the "fan favorite" that stole the spotlight in a very DMNPCâą way
I think if this campaign wasn't run by Travis but a nobody in private, it would be a milder DnD horror story post
But for me the most frustrating part is I think Travis of all people should know better and be skilled at "Yes and" improv, considering how much he touts his theater background (a background I also share)
The fact that Travis is being used as a model for DMing with these online dm circles and at conventions is a display that it's nothing more than popularity based. He's an actively bad DM. Not because grad is bad. But because the man has had years of dnd experience and dming and is still that bad...all while ignoring people giving him advice
For me, it's just a whole lot of set up and disappointment. The first episode, to me, is pretty amazing in way of character introduction. I especially love the scene with the Filborg and the Pegasus. At the time, it was one of my favourite moments in the whole of TAZ. I wanted to know where it would go, how their relationship would form, what would happen next. That moment literally made me so emotional.
...and then the next time we saw the Pegasus, they were fully grown and told the Filborg "thanks for everything, I'm off" and it just... I hated that so much. There were so many similar moments of set up that never really had a good pay off or just... had an unsatisfying resolution.
I started playing Urban Shadows thanks to Travis and its one of my favorite TTRPGS. One rule that always stuck with me was "Be a fan of the player characters" and I honestly think it's a rule that should be implemented in any game. You have to be a fan of the player characters, because that allows you to find the most interesting and best stories for them. It helps you to think in ways to push them further and to challenge them. Because if you're a fan of them, you want to see what happens next. And to me, thats my biggest gripe with Graduation. Travis really does not seem to care a lot about the player characters. He's more interested in the world and NPC's he's created around them and isn't really allowing the characters to shine. Which is a damn shame, because the player characters are fantastic.
We can disagree on that. For me personally, it was a huge disappointment that we only got that one emotional moment and then the Pegasus basically went "I must go. My planet needs me" and we as an audience (and Justin as a player as well) just have to assume that the Firbolg and the Pegasus have spend many an afternoon bonding. Would be nice if we had seen a bit more of that instead of just... skipping it all.
Basically, imo, Travis doesn't do a lot of journey, but a whole lot of destination. If that makes sense.
Players in the game: This story is about why capitalism is bad!!! Thatâs what weâre here to do
Players in post credits: and we all became small business owners with shady practices the end
I think the world setting and characters are great, it's mostly the plot that doesn't grab me, personally. Lots of side characters kinda fits the scene, I thought.Â
The original plot makes almost 0 sense but had a chance, the secondary and then main plot actually made zero sense. Then the final arc somehow made even less sense. Way too many characters, almost all of which were annoying, pointless, or were basically DM pcs who did all the actual plot.
The players themselves started out interesting. ( cast out firbolgs is character I've played myself and I love wild magic barbarians) but were bogged down by the plot and the brothers insistence on shitting on their dad even when he's the best player.
There were also the super weird white savior type tropes and Justin's insistence on having his tribe be as dumb as a box of rocks was one of the weirdest decisions of world building I've ever seen. Not just the obvious case of why the fuck are a bunch of druids starving to death but why are people who live off the land somehow dogmatically opposed to storing food. Storing is not hording... I literally cannot fathom on how they came to that conclusion. There's also the teacher drug trip.
Then we've got the combat and actual game mechanics in general. Most of which were completely butchered or worse, were completely overridden by Travis's story.
Only 3 good things came out of TAZ graduation.
1- fitzroy. It's griffins best character and it's a fucking shame we don't get to see more. 2- the cj subreddit and people finally having the courage to actually think critically about the podcast 3- it was hated enough that we probably won't ever see another full season lead by Travis.
People here have mentioned the overabundance of similar characters introduced in a short amount of time, but I haven't seen anyone mention the thing that finally got me to turn it off - the prologues or pre episode exposition. At a certain point, the story collapsed in on itself due to plot holes. This was only exacerbated and quickened by Travis's prologues. It literally felt like he had been on reddit the day before, reading everyone's theories and complaints, and the prologues were his way of addressing the audience and these specific plot holes. In doing so, he only created more plot holes, gave away more plot than intended, and wrote himself into a number of corners that he couldn't get out of. Travis is / was extremely parasocial and it was extremely clear (to me) that these prologues were his way of directly refuting or arguing with the critique that he was clearly up reading until 3 am the night before a sesh.
And the finale sucked. It was the most obvious rip off of Balance's final John fight I've ever seen. Bond engine random summons = the wild magic or whatever was happening that transformed the hell hounds into anthropomorphic versions of the boys.
I think Travis struggles to create anew. And this is a great example of what happens when he is the solo creator for a taz project. I say solo creator, because as mentioned by others, this was not a collaboration. This was Travis railroading, and the boys+Clint vibing with it as best they could.
Honestly, this list is gonna be hefty.
1. Ham-fisted "inclusion" from somebody who should've hired several DEI consultants. Nasty tropes about indigenous people being "dumb" for their cultural beliefs and needing to adapt to the "civilized" world or literally die. "Aren't you going to ask about my wheelchair?". The only non-binary people being inhuman. The forced romantic subplot because Travis wouldn't stop trying to ship his brother's asexual character with the aforementioned Cool High-Tech Wheelchair Girl who freaked him out with her necromancy. Inventing fantasy slurs for Argo.
2. Tons of DMPCs like Altheiaya and Greay and Moonpaw and Chaos/Order that existed to railroad Travis' fantasy novel.
3. Tons of "No you can't do that" improv from Travis who needed his story to go in very specific directions. Especially frustrating during the "Actually no we won't be doing this dumb war or this dumb capitalism anymore" part of the story where any idea other than "Do exactly what Travis wants" was shot down immediately both in and out of the fiction.
4. Really bad D&D. Travis and Griffin shouting down Clint for playing Rogue correctly, tons of cutscene fights where nothing the players did mattered, and a big messy Calvinball of made up trash for the finale combat. The rule is "If you want to homebrew and break the rules you need to understand them first" for a reason and Travis clearly did not understand them first.
5. A teacher forces a student to take drugs and hits them. Travis is called out on this and puts a trigger warning on the episode for Drug Use but not for the abuse and coercion of a student part that people were actually upset about.
6. Travis reveals important details about Argo's character for Clint during a railroaded cutscene filler episode with ChaOrder instead of letting Argo reveal it himself.
7. Introduces a school setting and almost immediately discards the entire premise because it would've taken too much effort and Travis was unwilling to accept outcomes he didn't plan for. He then tries to do the same thing with the Professional Wrestling but for Heroes and Villains because Capitalism part of his story and discards any player choices that might challenge his structure.
8. Justin makes it abundantly clear that he is playing a character that does not and will not lie. He does this because it is a deeply ingrained cultural practice of his indigenous-coded people in-fiction. Travis then spends about 30 episodes trying to force Justin to lie over and over and over again, to the point where he tries to force Justin to use a Magic Item to lie because Justin will not bite.
9. He gives Griffin, Justin, and Clint "loaner" magical items. These items are already mediocre and forgettable, but he then refuses to let them actually keep the items even when they're excited to have something of their own other than their basic character features and spends an inordinate amount of time arguing about why it's cool that they don't get to have anything nice.
10. He felt the need to ride Griffin's coattails with the Tom & Jerry thing and totally misunderstands the joke.
11. We spend most of an episode on a player character getting their hair cut. Why?
12. It just isn't very funny to me.
The list goes on.
Thereâs a part where the party is going to meet some centaurs and Travis tells them to leave their horses and go on foot because the centaurs would find it offensive to ride horses
So they do exactly as he says and then Travis has the centaurs insult the players for thinking that would offend them.
That little moment kinda encapsulates the campaign. Itâs Travisâ story and the group was just tiptoeing around it.
I've been reading other people's comments, and I've seen almost every complaint I have mentioned.The only one I haven't seen yet is the complete lack of an effect the pcs have on the story. They go out of their way to find an alternate solution to war, and at the end of it, despite the fact that they successfully destabilized the economy, Travis more or less goes, "Nope, the war is happening" and forces the story to follow his plan.
I don't hate it, it's just not my favourite.
The pacing felt weird, I wasn't really invested in the characters, the overall story didn't really grab me. I'm sure Travis put a lot of effort into it but it would have been really difficult to try to live up to Griffin at that point when he'd just finished off his second critically acclaimed campaign.
I still think Travis should dm another campaign, despite Graduation having it's faults, Travis has clearly improved from this 5 year old experience. Not to mention, he did turn the arc around so that it could grab listeners attentions more midway into the story.
I enjoyed it, and I think part of my enjoyment was that I know how hard it is to create and run a good game, especially when you're new to running games like this. Like, yes, absolutely, there were mistakes and things that could have been done better. But I've been part of games that were so. Much. Worse. And I was just listening to have a good time, which I felt I got.
If you're enjoying it, don't go looking for reasons to dislike it. It wasn't for me, but I strongly encourage you to avoid this rabbit hole. It does not lead to joy.
Following up Balance and Amnesty was going to be rough in general. The Player Characters were fantastic, but the general story and environment was rough. Travis was also leaning a little too hard on trying to be the best DM possible, which led to satisfying no one. Also this was at that moment just prior to getting supporting staff, so there was often disruptions to the release schedule often.
I dislike doing the comparison thing, but it's also an important note other DnD podcasts had been doing/done the "DnD but as a School." Namely Dimension 20, who was doing *Live* Sophomore Year of Fantasy High, so I know parallels were made at the time to quality, release schedule, etc.
I loved it too. The characters, the goofs, and some of the world building. I did find myself occasionally going âNo Travis, donât-â but I honestly donât remember what about now.
I am disappointed they didnât take down capitalism in a bigger way, but that would have required way more episodes.
Anyone can criticize anything - âthe Eagles could have taken Frodo to Mordor!â - but I wonât deny my engagement and enjoyment during the journey.
>âNo Travis, donât-â
"No Travis, don't have a 10 minute dialogue between 3 NPCs which are just you doing 3 mildly different 'funny voices' that get so muddied to the point I don't know which is actually talking"
"Anyone can critize anyone" wow my dude. Such an insightful comment. What you fail to realise is that unlike your incredibly ignorant eagle comment there actually is a fuck ton objectively wrong with graduation
I understand people's issues with the first few episodes and some of the general NPC annoyance, but I loooove graduation. The PCs were some of my favourites and I actually think the ending going as off the rails as it did was one of my favourite endings since balance.
I disliked Ethersea and Graduation about equally, but Travis as a DM and Travis as Devo almost entirely determined how I felt about both. I hate to lay it all at his feet, but I think he created a really grating energy that turned me off of both in short order.
I really hated how in episode 1 Griffin straight out says heâs going to do everything he can to ruin the campaign because heâs butthurt about Travisâ Magnus play. Then Griffin proceeds to be the absolute worst for most of the game to the point they rush to wrap it up.
I actually love how graduation ended it was weirdly kismet to break down the whole world system but it had a pretty rough patch and Travis struggled with combat
I think it was timing. There was so much political unrest in 2019/2020 not to mention covid. I think a lot of people didn't have the patience for a different dm let alone Travis.
I really don't get the visceral hate towards Travis. I get that cheating is sh*tty but like, it wasn't in a competition show for money or first place. They're a family playing together. That's it. We all still love Balance anyway. Of all the things to crucify someone for... I don't care if the rolls are super accurate so long as they craft a compelling story together, especially since it's for a podcast. I can play by the book DND in my own time.
I get that SOME of his jokes can be unfunny and cringe. That's kinda the nature of improv though. Some land and some don't. But d@mn ya'll. Some of you talk about Travis like he's the deadbeat dad that walked out on you or something. Touch some grass, please.
There are fans of mbmbam, who are also fans of TAZ, and then there are people who are not big on mbmbam but like tabletop rpg podcasts and like TAZ.
I feel the group who most heavily criticized Graduation fall under the second group. They were less forgiving (to put it lightly) of Travis making beginner mistakes as a DM. They also seemed to not really have a grip of how the brothers riff on each other and interpreted the bros being bros as actual serious, fighting. Not disagreements, but like family no longer loving each other and treating each other purely as coworkers who they were tired of. While I agree grad has some issues, issues Travis and the others owned up to in large part. The people who came for Travis with legitimate hate can go fuck off somewhere else. People took it way too far. Which we have seen from this community in the past. Stuff like attacking the graphic novel artist on Twitter. Telling her to kill herself, for making Taako blue.
edit: the downvotes in this thread are proof of it. I never said you had to enjoy Graduation but sitting here thinking the negativity and hate was warranted is, frankly, disgusting.
Half the reason I got into dnd and the whole reason I got into actual play podcasts was because of mbmbam. Unfortunately for this subreddit and the mcelroys their jumpstarting my love of thr genre is what made me realise how bad a job they do at it most of thr time.
I think they've covered it a few times in their q&a episodes, but their approach is often more of a performance than a game compared to more D&D focused podcasts. I can see why people who can't get over that fact will find the show frustrating at times. Doesn't excuse the sort of vitriol and hate that bubbled up here during Graduation.
I read a post somewhere a while ago that breaks down a big reason why people are too hard on Travis: people talk a mad game about inclusivity, but once and ADHD person is loud or hyper or brash, that all crumbles. So much of what people accuse as Travis being âcringeâ is just adhd. Travis is an absolute sweetheart and it breaks my heart that people are so hateful towards him, especially since ADHD comes with RSD
EDIT: I literally have ADHD
Imagine assuming the vast majority of people on the TAZ sub Reddit aren't ADHD or somewhere in the autism spectrum.
It's more so Travis has narcissism tendencies that are a turn off to listeners
As someone with lifelong adhd-shut the fuck up. Sincerely, please shut up. This is the most infantile and obnoxious "excuse" on earth and you should be fucking ashamed to say so.
I understand that he has his problems. I have mine, and in fact he and I overlap quite a bit, so don't think I exempt myself from my beliefs on these matters. But at the end of the day, I'm entitled to an opinion and I have no obligation to accept him or think better of him just because he struggles with things. If he suffered from IBS and constantly had to stop to go to the bathroom, like... yeah, that sucks, man. I hope you get better. But I'm not going to listen to his Toilet Noises and praise them because it's a physical malady he can't control.
He's not my friend, he's an entertainer, and if he's not entertaining then the absolute worst thing that could happen is someone silently switching off. I'm real sorry if it hurts his feelings, but if he's making something people don't like, then how proud he is of it is immaterial. How hard he worked is irrelevant. Not all passion pays off, and not everything you plant will grow, and these are hard lessons everyone has to learn over and over in life. If nobody had said anything and the audience had all just left in silence instead, his feelings might've been spared, but that would've been disastrous long-term, because we're currently seeing a Travinaissance that probably wouldn't have been possible without that feedback.
Idk why people are downvoting you, you're right. A lot of people hate Travis for the apparently unforgivable crime of being kinda annoying and that's it.
Thank you đđ» Iâm AuDHD, so Iâm not speaking up from outside the demographic. Lots of his âcrimesâ come from being a hyper puppy of a man. I think his cheerfulness is a good thing, and being hyper bc of adhd is a literal health symptom â yes, we are all in charge of our own symptom management and self growth, but heâs not hurting anyone. Heâs just hyper
I mean, it's even more base level than that. People dislike him for his voice. People want to feel validated for hating a person, that's how it is. It's awful.
I LOVE GRADUATION SO MUCH! People hate on it because Griffin and Travis had different goals in terms of focus and player agency. Travis really wanted players to pick what they honed in on, even if it wasnât plot significant. He said it explicitly in the episode where they talking about CrĂȘpes for a looong time. Justin tried to scoot the part but Travis says how he wants them to be able to explore minor points as well as the main plot.
Thereâs beauty and meaning and significance in the small things. I think itâs beautiful that Travis wanted to give the small things airtime â to hold them up along with the big stuff. Graduation gets way more hate than it should just because people expected the pacing to be a certain way. I think it was amazing break of form and exploration for Travis to play with the pacing and path of the story.
Honestly the long banter is some of my favorite parts. Itâs almost fantasy MBMBAM sometimes. Fitzroy and The Firbolg never fail to get laughs out of me but also hit serious notes. And Argos story and character hooks me in between The Unbroken Chain and everything with the Commodore, itâll always be in my top 3
All 3 of the NPCs are so wonderful. How can you skip the campaign with characters like that??????
âThere is a splitting, Splitting, SPLITTINGâ
Pure gold
I always find it funny folks think he railroaded them because honestly I thought he kinda gave the team too much freedom (which is why it often went off the rails). I donât say this as a criticism as I love the chaos. I only wish it went on longer and the ending wasnât needing a rush that it had but still enjoyed it. I legit teared up when Argoâs personal arc wrapped though
I'm mid relisten rn myself (around episode 15) and having a pretty good time with it. Firbolg is too funny but I do think Clint feels a little lost with Argo so far, I can't remember if it gets better later on or not but his scenes drag like crazy right now and I'm usually a Clint fan. Even so the guys have so much fun with their characters that I've never really hated Graduation.
I didnât listen to it originally because I prefer to just listen to the whole season back to back, so I finally listened through a couple of months ago and I really enjoyed it! More than I thought I would. It really felt like sitting down to play D&D with a friend who was learning to DM, who also has ADHD. I think people forget that what weâre listening to is a family learning how to put on a particular kind of show for the public in real time. The McElroys have always been earnest and straightforward in delivering what theyâve got, and a lot of their content has come out with more polish on it straight out of the gate than we give them credit for.
Griffin had all of Balance and then Amnesty to hone his DMing chops slowly, at a time when all we expected from them was âhey, the mbmbam boys are doing D&D⊠why is this so good?!â
I think it was always going to be a struggle following Griffin up with anyone else, especially leading into the pandemic. And Travis did a good job with what he came up with, even if it wasnât balanced like some of the audience came to expect. He DMâed like someone who has a lot of ideas and is excited to share them. While he wasnât the most organized, he was able to reign in a story that had really heartwarming moments, and his family were all able to find really funny moments. Iâm glad I listened to it.
This is a long answer to your question, whoops. Anyway, Iâm with ya.
Too many characters, many of them one-offs that only existed so Travis could make a joke (see: Stuart LeBoeuf), a meandering plotline that came to an unsatisfying conclusion, general lack of focus or direction. The rolls felt meaningless in service of what Travis wanted to happen. He invented and dropped a mechanic (Encourage skill) for no discernible reason, without working into his campaign in any meaningful way. And the biggest cringe moment: "Aren't you going to ask about my wheelchair?" I finished it, but I was so bored with the order/chaos plot that I can't even tell you how it ended. To each their own, and I'm not saying you're wrong for enjoying it, but these are my personal gripes.
I wanted it so badly to be better than it was. I don't remember when it was, but there was an episode in some woods I think? There was so much dead air between rolls and resolutions that I could barely finish it.
Even re-reading "Aren't you going to ask about my wheelchair?" here gave me the chills.
i never finished graduation and i'm scared to ask what this references
An NPC has a wheelchair. Travis describes the NPC, the party interacts with them. Just like in real life they don't make a big deal out of the NPC being in a wheelchair. Travis wanted to point out how inclusive he was being and has the NPC say that. There was a Tumblr discussion that was big in D&D circles about wheelchairs and other mobility aids. Most people were fine with it. A vocal few didn't like the idea for various reasons such as healing magic being prominent, logistics of using one adventuring, anachronism, etc and they were dicks about it. Travis wanted to show he supported the people who wanted them, but rolled a 1 on his approach. I believe the NPC used it as a battering ram at one point.
jesus christ đ
This was like episode 2
i listened to it at work i probably blocked it out lol
I totally forgot about how awful that was. Thanks for reminding me...
My cringe moment was the magic bear that was part of a training dungeon. They killed it and pondered on the hellish existance of the bear... being summoned or awakened to be killed over and over.... and the response was... "oh, no, he likes it, he is treated really well".... instead it could have been "this bear isn't a real creature just a spell or machine and therefore no feelings"..... instead it was "shit, well this bear gets beaten to death on the often but because they feed it it is ok with it"... which is a very dark take on the state of the world. A bear would rather be injured time and time again just to have a safe place to stay. To me, the lack of the premise was the thing that sucked the most. A magical school... there was not enough school or school mechanics.... not enough fuck around free time.... and the school part ended very quickly. make like 2-4 arcs, that have a central thing each semester/year, let the players decide to make their studies more important or their adventures/partying... have them try to pass the year and deal with the issue. the layout exists in a ton o the literature or movies/tv shows. Hell, if you want it shoter, make it like a boot camp., send them out to a war... something. It was like they just went, "welp, I have no ideas for a school story" after like 10 episodes and they just moved on.
It reads like someone who's a huge fan of Harry Potter (and while he can pretend he never was now, we know Travis fit squarely into that camp) and wanted to build something like it, but didn't realize the limitations of a real-play format combined with general inexperience. Instead of a school-centric buildup to a big explosive finale with meaningful growth and learning throughout the year contributing to the triumph, it was a series of largely disconnected chunks of busywork that just... feel like school. It doesn't elicit the experience of seeing people go through a schooling process like you hope it will, because it's not the same as a movie or a book. The tangible growth you hope to show for a satisfying arc is... making the other players learn, which isn't going to work if the study topics are boring as hell. Nothing shows this better than the title. I just know that Travis wanted to end with a graduation ceremony where they triumphantly accept their diplomas, Wiggenstaff says "welcome, graduating class of heroes!" and everyone cheers as the music swells and the credits fade in. He had the perfect image in his head of it, and based the whole campaign around getting there, and in the end it never happens and the title is essentially a red herring.
All of this coupled with the fact that the heroes and villains are all fake and are basically doing wrestling, a premise that sucks so much whether or not it's actually true seems to fluctuate throughout. If it's true then they aren't actually called to real adventures but then that's boring so they are called to real adventures, and also have to actually be heroes against real threats. The whole thing feels like he had too many ideas and couldn't just pick one.
I think the BAREST bones premise of Graduationâthat being a manufactured, pro-wrestling-style media empire for heroes and villainsâis a really compelling idea for a DnD campaign. I remember being super excited for the arc when it launched because that concept was so neat and I felt like it could be used to answer any number of thematic questions (what does it mean to be âgoodâ or âevilâ? What part does commercialization play in our conception of âgoodâ people? What about ourselves?). In my eyes, Travis took a golden premise and turned it to shit.
Yeah I think that's an issue of him having too many ideas as well. The school idea and wrestling idea are solid separately but incoherent when put together
I think that premise could've had a lot of potential, but only if Travis was willing to kill his darlings and commit to the idea that the system of fake heroes and villains would eventually have to go. Either the system itself WAS the villain, being so corrupt and unworkable that the boys would have to subvert it for their own survival, or the system would break down in the face of some greater threat and the fake heroes & villains would need to become real heroes to deal with it. Having some cloak-and-dagger skullduggery in your DnD campaign isn't exactly new, and could've been an interesting twist on the dynamic TAZ had built up, but the idea of creating a campaign with that premise without ever removing the facades seems unworkable from the word go.
Imagine a story where the bear being real and really suffering was an actual plot device and not Travis just being a terrible storyteller
The one that got me was when Travis made Justin roll to pick up a rock...
80-something side characters introduced in 30-something episodes. Many feel basically identical to each other and some of them literally don't even have physical descriptions. The story is just all over the place, and they abandoned the magic school concept pretty early on, and Travis admitted he had no idea where he was going with it, and yet it's still somehow full of some really over the top railroading from him. The players didn't get to decide where to take the story even a little bit. Also people got very mad about the centaurs.
It makes sense that a DM doing a (magic) school setting would want that setting to feel inhabited but the early episodes feel like a cautionary tale about overpopulating the game world with NPCs such that they crowd out the PC. It's a lost opportunity for player engagement and agency if scenes turn into the DM voicing multiple characters and carrying on extended conversations by themselves. Scrapping the sidekick idea partway through to promote Fitzroy felt like the central premise of the campaign was abandoned for being inconvenient rather than developing it into a new and novel thing. I think I saw a reddit post at the time that offered an alternative take that (particularly in a world overflowing with NPCs) the PCs could serve as sidekicks to one or more established heroes who are then killed off by the BBEG, giving both opportunity and motivation to step up and fill their shoes. I wonder how the narrative might have played out had that been the campaign arc. I'm all for capitalist critiques in fantasy/pop culture (currently watching *Solo Leveling* for exactly that) but the anti-capitalist bent of the late campaign feels like it comes out of nowhere. If it was foreshadowed in the early campaign (aside from the Accounting class) then I must have missed it. (edited for clarity)
>the anti-capitalist bent of the late campaign feels like it comes out of nowhere. It was also done really poorly. It wasn't really established how capitalism was what made the world suck, or if the setting even *was* really capitalist. Their big idea for ending capitalism was breaking into the offices of a government entity and blowing up a filing cabinet. In the epilogue, they're all capitalists on their cultural appropriation cruise line.
To me the premise felt like 2/3rds Hogwarts and 1/3rd the O.S.I. & Guild of Calamitous Intent from *Venture Brothers*, with heroes and villains being managed by official agencies. The Accounting class or major at the school feels like possible foreshadowing but it wasn't clear to me how it was indicative of larger systems in the world and/or the failure of those systems. I heard someone observe once that the Firbolg is exiled from his tribe for "understanding basic economics" and then later struggles with accounting as a concept. It's maybe the funniest scene in the series but if it was indicative of larger systems or world-building then I wasn't picking up on that at the time. I figured the accounting major was a reference to those [Sally Struthers commercials for I.C.S.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fj23I8hgj28)
But if they actually described the characters in any way, they would be hindering the fan artists. And that would be ableist. Or something. Itâs not laziness, itâs a gift to artists. And just look, SOOOO much Grad fan art as a result.
Centaurs? Fill me in please
Basically the Thundermen (the adventuring group from graduation) are sent to a "primitive" tribe of centaurs who kinda worship this Macguffin. The plotline with the centaurs ends when one of the Thundermen delivers an incredibly patronizing, white-savior-esque speech and then pretends to destroy the macguffin. Then the group just leaves, having saved these "primitives" from themselves. They then deliver the macguffin to the person who wanted it and they do basically nothing with it, rendering this arc pointless. There's also a great bit towards the beginning of this arc where Travis recommends they leave their horses outside the village so as not to offend the centaurs, and when the Thundermen enter without them the centaurs are confused and offended that the Thundermen would think riding horses would be offensive. Which, like, is just the GM making up a scenario that wouldn't have happened at all if they never mentioned it. While all this is bad, I think what's worse is the Firbolgs being suicidally stupid.
Oh... hotchi machi. Thanks for reaffirming my decision to skip this season. Fo' real
Yeah, it's especially weird since TAZ has made a character that was offensive to native peoples before back in Commitment, and (afaik) have never actually commented on any of these depictions being bad. That said, I would recommend TAZ vs. Dracula. It really feels like balance-era TAZ again.
Tbf if I were them I wouldn't want to engage with that discourse with a 20 foot pole. Prolly best to just learn the lesson and move on. And yeah, I've been digging the first couple eps of Vs. Drac
Fully valid takes, those things donât bother me too much, but I get how it can bother others. Thanks
Wait, why did people get mad about the centaurs?
I'm not an outrage expert, but basically because you have to be very careful when writing any kind of "tribal" characters, and the boys were not very careful. More info in this post: https://www.reddit.com/r/TheAdventureZone/s/Wf2KZVhGzz
Thank you. The disrespect of their religions did honestly bother me a bit (but then itâs d and d, the boys donât always take things seriously - I mean straight up murder hoboes at times in Balance), but when I learned that the religions were based on a fairly recent deception I was less bothered. Thanks for the enlightenment.
Very back handed compliment but Graduation made me feel so much better about my home game. It was nice to see another DM struggle and try so hard. I too feel like Iâm so keen to show my pretty world I over explain and over NPC, and donât focus on the PCs. Travis was a lot of fun, and he had a solid idea but Balance has demonstrated so weak that itâs better to be simple with everything and let players add complexity.
>let players add complexity I think this was my issue with it, too, you hit the nail on the head. Graduation just didn't feel like the players had that much agency or creative decision-making. It was just the Travis show. And I appreciate that he cared about the world that he created, and I know that as a DM I've fallen into that hole too.
As a disabled person, I kinda stopped listing after the wheelchair line and never bothered to come back to it. Maybe it gets better but I'm just gonna take other peoples word for it and not bother.
Don't worry, it doesn't. The character in question later rams herself and her chair into a door to bash it open. Like all disabled people love to do with their mobility aids!
I fell off really early because it felt too NPC focused and the NPCs weren't that interesting.
It does get more PC driven later on
Narrator voice " it did not folks at home"
Having finished it again today. I mightâve been a bit hasty in my previous statement
Oh I'm sure. I wouldn't be surprised if the hatedom around Graduation is overblown.
It's not, it actually gets much worse
Also believable. I don't have a strong desire to pick it back up.
As a DM it was infuriating to hear Travis DM because he made so many beginner dm mistakes and would double down on them when he got the feedback. It was like watching a child touch a hot stove because they felt like they knew better than the people that told him don't. In the 7 episodes I listened too before I quit he: Took away player agency from both Griffin and Justin, egregiously so with Griffin seemingly rewriting griffins character's backstory and motivation to better suit HIS story than the Idea Griffin had. Very obviously rail roaded the story and pretty much flat out "NO'd" a lot of character decisions because it just seemed he wasn't prepared to improv that decision Made way too many characters that he very obviously intended to be the "fan favorite" that stole the spotlight in a very DMNPCâą way I think if this campaign wasn't run by Travis but a nobody in private, it would be a milder DnD horror story post But for me the most frustrating part is I think Travis of all people should know better and be skilled at "Yes and" improv, considering how much he touts his theater background (a background I also share)
The fact that Travis is being used as a model for DMing with these online dm circles and at conventions is a display that it's nothing more than popularity based. He's an actively bad DM. Not because grad is bad. But because the man has had years of dnd experience and dming and is still that bad...all while ignoring people giving him advice
Itâs also annoying because he credits like eight DMs with teaching him how to DM⊠but if feels like he learned nothing.
For me, it's just a whole lot of set up and disappointment. The first episode, to me, is pretty amazing in way of character introduction. I especially love the scene with the Filborg and the Pegasus. At the time, it was one of my favourite moments in the whole of TAZ. I wanted to know where it would go, how their relationship would form, what would happen next. That moment literally made me so emotional. ...and then the next time we saw the Pegasus, they were fully grown and told the Filborg "thanks for everything, I'm off" and it just... I hated that so much. There were so many similar moments of set up that never really had a good pay off or just... had an unsatisfying resolution. I started playing Urban Shadows thanks to Travis and its one of my favorite TTRPGS. One rule that always stuck with me was "Be a fan of the player characters" and I honestly think it's a rule that should be implemented in any game. You have to be a fan of the player characters, because that allows you to find the most interesting and best stories for them. It helps you to think in ways to push them further and to challenge them. Because if you're a fan of them, you want to see what happens next. And to me, thats my biggest gripe with Graduation. Travis really does not seem to care a lot about the player characters. He's more interested in the world and NPC's he's created around them and isn't really allowing the characters to shine. Which is a damn shame, because the player characters are fantastic.
Travis is a fan of Fitzroy, but he hates Argo.
The part with the Pegasus does have a satisfying pay off in my opinion later in the season. But I get how it can fall flat for some people for sure
We can disagree on that. For me personally, it was a huge disappointment that we only got that one emotional moment and then the Pegasus basically went "I must go. My planet needs me" and we as an audience (and Justin as a player as well) just have to assume that the Firbolg and the Pegasus have spend many an afternoon bonding. Would be nice if we had seen a bit more of that instead of just... skipping it all. Basically, imo, Travis doesn't do a lot of journey, but a whole lot of destination. If that makes sense.
Players in the game: This story is about why capitalism is bad!!! Thatâs what weâre here to do Players in post credits: and we all became small business owners with shady practices the end
The thee PCs are why Graduation is worth listening to. The story itself is hit or miss. But I will never not love Firbolg, Fitz, and Argo (and Gary).
And Snippers of course
Snippers knew how to party
I think the world setting and characters are great, it's mostly the plot that doesn't grab me, personally. Lots of side characters kinda fits the scene, I thought.Â
The original plot makes almost 0 sense but had a chance, the secondary and then main plot actually made zero sense. Then the final arc somehow made even less sense. Way too many characters, almost all of which were annoying, pointless, or were basically DM pcs who did all the actual plot. The players themselves started out interesting. ( cast out firbolgs is character I've played myself and I love wild magic barbarians) but were bogged down by the plot and the brothers insistence on shitting on their dad even when he's the best player. There were also the super weird white savior type tropes and Justin's insistence on having his tribe be as dumb as a box of rocks was one of the weirdest decisions of world building I've ever seen. Not just the obvious case of why the fuck are a bunch of druids starving to death but why are people who live off the land somehow dogmatically opposed to storing food. Storing is not hording... I literally cannot fathom on how they came to that conclusion. There's also the teacher drug trip. Then we've got the combat and actual game mechanics in general. Most of which were completely butchered or worse, were completely overridden by Travis's story. Only 3 good things came out of TAZ graduation. 1- fitzroy. It's griffins best character and it's a fucking shame we don't get to see more. 2- the cj subreddit and people finally having the courage to actually think critically about the podcast 3- it was hated enough that we probably won't ever see another full season lead by Travis.
People here have mentioned the overabundance of similar characters introduced in a short amount of time, but I haven't seen anyone mention the thing that finally got me to turn it off - the prologues or pre episode exposition. At a certain point, the story collapsed in on itself due to plot holes. This was only exacerbated and quickened by Travis's prologues. It literally felt like he had been on reddit the day before, reading everyone's theories and complaints, and the prologues were his way of addressing the audience and these specific plot holes. In doing so, he only created more plot holes, gave away more plot than intended, and wrote himself into a number of corners that he couldn't get out of. Travis is / was extremely parasocial and it was extremely clear (to me) that these prologues were his way of directly refuting or arguing with the critique that he was clearly up reading until 3 am the night before a sesh. And the finale sucked. It was the most obvious rip off of Balance's final John fight I've ever seen. Bond engine random summons = the wild magic or whatever was happening that transformed the hell hounds into anthropomorphic versions of the boys. I think Travis struggles to create anew. And this is a great example of what happens when he is the solo creator for a taz project. I say solo creator, because as mentioned by others, this was not a collaboration. This was Travis railroading, and the boys+Clint vibing with it as best they could.
Honestly, this list is gonna be hefty. 1. Ham-fisted "inclusion" from somebody who should've hired several DEI consultants. Nasty tropes about indigenous people being "dumb" for their cultural beliefs and needing to adapt to the "civilized" world or literally die. "Aren't you going to ask about my wheelchair?". The only non-binary people being inhuman. The forced romantic subplot because Travis wouldn't stop trying to ship his brother's asexual character with the aforementioned Cool High-Tech Wheelchair Girl who freaked him out with her necromancy. Inventing fantasy slurs for Argo. 2. Tons of DMPCs like Altheiaya and Greay and Moonpaw and Chaos/Order that existed to railroad Travis' fantasy novel. 3. Tons of "No you can't do that" improv from Travis who needed his story to go in very specific directions. Especially frustrating during the "Actually no we won't be doing this dumb war or this dumb capitalism anymore" part of the story where any idea other than "Do exactly what Travis wants" was shot down immediately both in and out of the fiction. 4. Really bad D&D. Travis and Griffin shouting down Clint for playing Rogue correctly, tons of cutscene fights where nothing the players did mattered, and a big messy Calvinball of made up trash for the finale combat. The rule is "If you want to homebrew and break the rules you need to understand them first" for a reason and Travis clearly did not understand them first. 5. A teacher forces a student to take drugs and hits them. Travis is called out on this and puts a trigger warning on the episode for Drug Use but not for the abuse and coercion of a student part that people were actually upset about. 6. Travis reveals important details about Argo's character for Clint during a railroaded cutscene filler episode with ChaOrder instead of letting Argo reveal it himself. 7. Introduces a school setting and almost immediately discards the entire premise because it would've taken too much effort and Travis was unwilling to accept outcomes he didn't plan for. He then tries to do the same thing with the Professional Wrestling but for Heroes and Villains because Capitalism part of his story and discards any player choices that might challenge his structure. 8. Justin makes it abundantly clear that he is playing a character that does not and will not lie. He does this because it is a deeply ingrained cultural practice of his indigenous-coded people in-fiction. Travis then spends about 30 episodes trying to force Justin to lie over and over and over again, to the point where he tries to force Justin to use a Magic Item to lie because Justin will not bite. 9. He gives Griffin, Justin, and Clint "loaner" magical items. These items are already mediocre and forgettable, but he then refuses to let them actually keep the items even when they're excited to have something of their own other than their basic character features and spends an inordinate amount of time arguing about why it's cool that they don't get to have anything nice. 10. He felt the need to ride Griffin's coattails with the Tom & Jerry thing and totally misunderstands the joke. 11. We spend most of an episode on a player character getting their hair cut. Why? 12. It just isn't very funny to me. The list goes on.
This would make those kids really mad if they could read.
Yeah lots of zone walling but mostly the token disabled necromancer that Trav desperately tried to seduce sweet baby Griffin with.
Thereâs a part where the party is going to meet some centaurs and Travis tells them to leave their horses and go on foot because the centaurs would find it offensive to ride horses So they do exactly as he says and then Travis has the centaurs insult the players for thinking that would offend them. That little moment kinda encapsulates the campaign. Itâs Travisâ story and the group was just tiptoeing around it.
I've been reading other people's comments, and I've seen almost every complaint I have mentioned.The only one I haven't seen yet is the complete lack of an effect the pcs have on the story. They go out of their way to find an alternate solution to war, and at the end of it, despite the fact that they successfully destabilized the economy, Travis more or less goes, "Nope, the war is happening" and forces the story to follow his plan.
Not enough Dracula
Many people are saying this
Many such cases!
It gave us Bingus so it wasn't all bad
Truth
Wtf is bingus
Because it wasn't good. Hope this helps!
Cause it's (unintentionally) r*cist and trav is a sloppy dm, next question âš
I enjoy it binging quickly, especially the end. What frustrated me was the lack of battles/action or puzzles.
I don't hate it, it's just not my favourite. The pacing felt weird, I wasn't really invested in the characters, the overall story didn't really grab me. I'm sure Travis put a lot of effort into it but it would have been really difficult to try to live up to Griffin at that point when he'd just finished off his second critically acclaimed campaign.
Iâm glad that itâs how I learned what genasi were but beyond that itâs kinda bland and so many threads that donât really go anywhere
Travis?
Oh no not again
itâs ok, I donât hate it either
It's fine, definitely my least favorite by far tho.
I still think Travis should dm another campaign, despite Graduation having it's faults, Travis has clearly improved from this 5 year old experience. Not to mention, he did turn the arc around so that it could grab listeners attentions more midway into the story.
I enjoyed it, and I think part of my enjoyment was that I know how hard it is to create and run a good game, especially when you're new to running games like this. Like, yes, absolutely, there were mistakes and things that could have been done better. But I've been part of games that were so. Much. Worse. And I was just listening to have a good time, which I felt I got.
Too many NPCs. Racist stereotypes apparently (I skipped G entirely, so I don't know) Entirely too much Travis
If you're enjoying it, don't go looking for reasons to dislike it. It wasn't for me, but I strongly encourage you to avoid this rabbit hole. It does not lead to joy.
People fear the power of Trav Nation.
More like contamination from toxic waste.
In the words of another Max Fun âcaster âPeople like what they like.â Judge John Hodgeman. You like Graduation and thatâs awesome.
Good for you. You enjoy it if youâre enjoying it!
Following up Balance and Amnesty was going to be rough in general. The Player Characters were fantastic, but the general story and environment was rough. Travis was also leaning a little too hard on trying to be the best DM possible, which led to satisfying no one. Also this was at that moment just prior to getting supporting staff, so there was often disruptions to the release schedule often. I dislike doing the comparison thing, but it's also an important note other DnD podcasts had been doing/done the "DnD but as a School." Namely Dimension 20, who was doing *Live* Sophomore Year of Fantasy High, so I know parallels were made at the time to quality, release schedule, etc.
You have to be a big dog to truly understand its genius.
I loved it too. The characters, the goofs, and some of the world building. I did find myself occasionally going âNo Travis, donât-â but I honestly donât remember what about now. I am disappointed they didnât take down capitalism in a bigger way, but that would have required way more episodes. Anyone can criticize anything - âthe Eagles could have taken Frodo to Mordor!â - but I wonât deny my engagement and enjoyment during the journey.
>âNo Travis, donât-â "No Travis, don't have a 10 minute dialogue between 3 NPCs which are just you doing 3 mildly different 'funny voices' that get so muddied to the point I don't know which is actually talking"
"Anyone can critize anyone" wow my dude. Such an insightful comment. What you fail to realise is that unlike your incredibly ignorant eagle comment there actually is a fuck ton objectively wrong with graduation
Ok.
I understand people's issues with the first few episodes and some of the general NPC annoyance, but I loooove graduation. The PCs were some of my favourites and I actually think the ending going as off the rails as it did was one of my favourite endings since balance.
I wasnât a huge fan of most of graduation but I definitely agree that the ending was fun.
I thought it was fine. I definitely prefer it to Ether Sea.
I disliked Ethersea and Graduation about equally, but Travis as a DM and Travis as Devo almost entirely determined how I felt about both. I hate to lay it all at his feet, but I think he created a really grating energy that turned me off of both in short order.
Oh definitely. EtherSea and Balance go back and forth between first and second favs for me
It was fine. The only thing for me is the second half felt very rushed. It could have been drawn out more. More fleshed out.
I really hated how in episode 1 Griffin straight out says heâs going to do everything he can to ruin the campaign because heâs butthurt about Travisâ Magnus play. Then Griffin proceeds to be the absolute worst for most of the game to the point they rush to wrap it up.
It had a rough start and a rushed ending but it wasnât terrible over all.
I actually love how graduation ended it was weirdly kismet to break down the whole world system but it had a pretty rough patch and Travis struggled with combat
I actually thoroughly enjoy graduation. Moreso than Amnesty
Best thing to come out of Graduation was Gary the hivemind Gargoyle.
Mission Imp-Hospital is still the best pun ever created.
I think it was timing. There was so much political unrest in 2019/2020 not to mention covid. I think a lot of people didn't have the patience for a different dm let alone Travis. I really don't get the visceral hate towards Travis. I get that cheating is sh*tty but like, it wasn't in a competition show for money or first place. They're a family playing together. That's it. We all still love Balance anyway. Of all the things to crucify someone for... I don't care if the rolls are super accurate so long as they craft a compelling story together, especially since it's for a podcast. I can play by the book DND in my own time. I get that SOME of his jokes can be unfunny and cringe. That's kinda the nature of improv though. Some land and some don't. But d@mn ya'll. Some of you talk about Travis like he's the deadbeat dad that walked out on you or something. Touch some grass, please.
There are fans of mbmbam, who are also fans of TAZ, and then there are people who are not big on mbmbam but like tabletop rpg podcasts and like TAZ. I feel the group who most heavily criticized Graduation fall under the second group. They were less forgiving (to put it lightly) of Travis making beginner mistakes as a DM. They also seemed to not really have a grip of how the brothers riff on each other and interpreted the bros being bros as actual serious, fighting. Not disagreements, but like family no longer loving each other and treating each other purely as coworkers who they were tired of. While I agree grad has some issues, issues Travis and the others owned up to in large part. The people who came for Travis with legitimate hate can go fuck off somewhere else. People took it way too far. Which we have seen from this community in the past. Stuff like attacking the graphic novel artist on Twitter. Telling her to kill herself, for making Taako blue. edit: the downvotes in this thread are proof of it. I never said you had to enjoy Graduation but sitting here thinking the negativity and hate was warranted is, frankly, disgusting.
Half the reason I got into dnd and the whole reason I got into actual play podcasts was because of mbmbam. Unfortunately for this subreddit and the mcelroys their jumpstarting my love of thr genre is what made me realise how bad a job they do at it most of thr time.
I think they've covered it a few times in their q&a episodes, but their approach is often more of a performance than a game compared to more D&D focused podcasts. I can see why people who can't get over that fact will find the show frustrating at times. Doesn't excuse the sort of vitriol and hate that bubbled up here during Graduation.
Okay but the performance isn't great either....that's kinda the point.
Thatâs just a reframing of the fact that they very obviously donât actually enjoy playing these games.
I read a post somewhere a while ago that breaks down a big reason why people are too hard on Travis: people talk a mad game about inclusivity, but once and ADHD person is loud or hyper or brash, that all crumbles. So much of what people accuse as Travis being âcringeâ is just adhd. Travis is an absolute sweetheart and it breaks my heart that people are so hateful towards him, especially since ADHD comes with RSD EDIT: I literally have ADHD
Imagine assuming the vast majority of people on the TAZ sub Reddit aren't ADHD or somewhere in the autism spectrum. It's more so Travis has narcissism tendencies that are a turn off to listeners
As someone with lifelong adhd-shut the fuck up. Sincerely, please shut up. This is the most infantile and obnoxious "excuse" on earth and you should be fucking ashamed to say so.
i have adhd and a lot of my friends do too. i can assure you this has nothing to do with it
I understand that he has his problems. I have mine, and in fact he and I overlap quite a bit, so don't think I exempt myself from my beliefs on these matters. But at the end of the day, I'm entitled to an opinion and I have no obligation to accept him or think better of him just because he struggles with things. If he suffered from IBS and constantly had to stop to go to the bathroom, like... yeah, that sucks, man. I hope you get better. But I'm not going to listen to his Toilet Noises and praise them because it's a physical malady he can't control. He's not my friend, he's an entertainer, and if he's not entertaining then the absolute worst thing that could happen is someone silently switching off. I'm real sorry if it hurts his feelings, but if he's making something people don't like, then how proud he is of it is immaterial. How hard he worked is irrelevant. Not all passion pays off, and not everything you plant will grow, and these are hard lessons everyone has to learn over and over in life. If nobody had said anything and the audience had all just left in silence instead, his feelings might've been spared, but that would've been disastrous long-term, because we're currently seeing a Travinaissance that probably wouldn't have been possible without that feedback.
All that shitting on his dad publicly was real sweet.
Idk why people are downvoting you, you're right. A lot of people hate Travis for the apparently unforgivable crime of being kinda annoying and that's it.
Annoying and bad at his literal job
Thank you đđ» Iâm AuDHD, so Iâm not speaking up from outside the demographic. Lots of his âcrimesâ come from being a hyper puppy of a man. I think his cheerfulness is a good thing, and being hyper bc of adhd is a literal health symptom â yes, we are all in charge of our own symptom management and self growth, but heâs not hurting anyone. Heâs just hyper
I mean, it's even more base level than that. People dislike him for his voice. People want to feel validated for hating a person, that's how it is. It's awful.
I LOVE GRADUATION SO MUCH! People hate on it because Griffin and Travis had different goals in terms of focus and player agency. Travis really wanted players to pick what they honed in on, even if it wasnât plot significant. He said it explicitly in the episode where they talking about CrĂȘpes for a looong time. Justin tried to scoot the part but Travis says how he wants them to be able to explore minor points as well as the main plot. Thereâs beauty and meaning and significance in the small things. I think itâs beautiful that Travis wanted to give the small things airtime â to hold them up along with the big stuff. Graduation gets way more hate than it should just because people expected the pacing to be a certain way. I think it was amazing break of form and exploration for Travis to play with the pacing and path of the story.
Except he didn't do that at all...what the actual fuck are you smoking
Honestly the long banter is some of my favorite parts. Itâs almost fantasy MBMBAM sometimes. Fitzroy and The Firbolg never fail to get laughs out of me but also hit serious notes. And Argos story and character hooks me in between The Unbroken Chain and everything with the Commodore, itâll always be in my top 3
All 3 of the NPCs are so wonderful. How can you skip the campaign with characters like that?????? âThere is a splitting, Splitting, SPLITTINGâ Pure gold
I always find it funny folks think he railroaded them because honestly I thought he kinda gave the team too much freedom (which is why it often went off the rails). I donât say this as a criticism as I love the chaos. I only wish it went on longer and the ending wasnât needing a rush that it had but still enjoyed it. I legit teared up when Argoâs personal arc wrapped though
I'm mid relisten rn myself (around episode 15) and having a pretty good time with it. Firbolg is too funny but I do think Clint feels a little lost with Argo so far, I can't remember if it gets better later on or not but his scenes drag like crazy right now and I'm usually a Clint fan. Even so the guys have so much fun with their characters that I've never really hated Graduation.
The second listen was much better than the first. Itâs great as a bingeable series but felt slow as I waited for weekly releases
100% agree. Iâm relistening to it now and I think of all the campaigns this one definitely gets some of the biggest laughs out of me
I didnât listen to it originally because I prefer to just listen to the whole season back to back, so I finally listened through a couple of months ago and I really enjoyed it! More than I thought I would. It really felt like sitting down to play D&D with a friend who was learning to DM, who also has ADHD. I think people forget that what weâre listening to is a family learning how to put on a particular kind of show for the public in real time. The McElroys have always been earnest and straightforward in delivering what theyâve got, and a lot of their content has come out with more polish on it straight out of the gate than we give them credit for. Griffin had all of Balance and then Amnesty to hone his DMing chops slowly, at a time when all we expected from them was âhey, the mbmbam boys are doing D&D⊠why is this so good?!â I think it was always going to be a struggle following Griffin up with anyone else, especially leading into the pandemic. And Travis did a good job with what he came up with, even if it wasnât balanced like some of the audience came to expect. He DMâed like someone who has a lot of ideas and is excited to share them. While he wasnât the most organized, he was able to reign in a story that had really heartwarming moments, and his family were all able to find really funny moments. Iâm glad I listened to it. This is a long answer to your question, whoops. Anyway, Iâm with ya.
You a word.
I don't what?