The The Adventure Zone Zone: Versus Dracula Wrap-Up!

Good evening.

Welcome to my domain.

I haven't gotten to do the voice, guys, in over a month, and

I have it swelling up inside me.

It's all pent up.

It's all pent up.

I got a bust.

You're having a Drac attack.

Dracula flow.

Hey, everybody.

Welcome to The Adventure Zone Zone, everyone's favorite podcast about the podcast done by the guys in the podcast.

This episode, we're recapping our adventures in Engrave with Taz vs.

Dracula.

Hey, I'll start.

I had a good fucking time doing this.

Yeah, this one was like a game to play.

This one was like a fun game and you, yeah,

I would agree with you.

This is our most game-like season.

It was nice to finally have fun with you guys.

You're making it sound like we don't have fun doing other seasons of the show.

No, I'm interested.

I'm interested.

Let's get, are we going to introduce ourselves?

I'm Justin Mancroy.

I did.

It would be so wild.

Lady Guy.

Listen to the commentary episode.

Okay, I want to have a,

I know we usually do QA, but before we get into that, I want to have a navel gazey

show holds bar free-flowing conversation about why a debrief a debrief some some seasons are really easy and some of them take a lot more work to have to some take a while to find their footing why do you guys think drack versus dracula uh what are the reasons that it that it worked as as well as it did gosh i hope everyone out there liked i'm not

it's in con i'm saying like within the context of the the stuff we made of the four why did we have let's just call it fun then why why was this one so much fun?

I have theories, but I don't want to get your thoughts.

One of the things that I really think worked very well is from the get, like, you can't deny a clear objective.

Uh, it's right there in the title, right?

I'm just like, yeah, we got to stop Dracula.

Yeah.

I think that

I could, I could think of, I think, 10 reasons off the top of my head of like things that I'm.

I tried to do purposefully differently from how I did it in like Amnesty or Aethercy,

which is way less prep and predefined like courses of action.

I had like ideas and events that you could sort of swing on a vine to if you needed them, but like way, way, way less prep on my end, which just means naturally kind of like more improvisation on your guys' end.

I also think like, and this is very purposeful, again, we talked about this a lot when we were trying to decide what the next season should be.

Like wanting to do one with a concept that is kind of funny.

Like I think that everything we've done, except maybe Taz Balance, which maybe there's a lesson there,

like the ideas have been more kind of like fleshed out.

And, you know, with Aether C, we had all the world building that we did and had like all of this, this big rich world that was fun to play around in.

But having a guiding light of like everything can just be like dead ass stupid

was very liberating.

It was very liberating for me.

And frankly, I think plays to our strengths a lot better than than,

you know, starting out a season with like a whole bunch of

lore and stuff that we want to, you know, bounce off.

Dad, what about you?

I like the fact that

after whatever, nine years, eight years, however many years,

we have, we were able to kind of get back to thinking outside the box when it came to solving problems and doing stuff.

But we, that's tempered with our experience that you don't want to go too far outside the box.

Yeah.

We just stayed within a slightly bigger box than the slightly smaller box.

Sure.

But I think we were.

And I think we, but I think it challenges your creativity.

Instead of just saying the wildest crap you can think of

in an attempt to derail,

I think we tried to think

teamwork and tried to think what would be be really not only kind of cool, but but but it would be fun.

I think getting back to entertaining ourselves,

I mean

to a large, I think we've never not entertained ourselves, but I think the fact that we got back to

let's the four of us have a blast and if everybody else likes it, that's great.

And I enjoyed that quite a bit.

And I think the fact that we went in without too much character delineation that we able to

free things up or completely change character if need be.

Well, yeah, that wasn't a conscious choice on your part, at least not.

No, I don't know.

No, it was not that much.

We'll get to that question.

Okay, cool.

Yeah, I can't wait to debrief all the fucking completely

unpredictable wild moments that made me throw away large portions of my prep work.

Travis, did you answer the question?

Well, yeah, no, I said the clear thing, but I also think to Griffin's point, I think we do well in like the juxtaposition of like us as players and our characters juxtaposed to like the world and so like a world in which you know on paper it's like there's a scary monster king who has been like stolen the sun and it like the undead walk the earth and it's like yeah okay cool uh those but that didn't inform like the way that we a lot of active people actually happens.

Yeah.

And so I think it creates a lot of really good and fertile ground for having fun to be able to react to those things and have expectations subverted and stuff like that.

I think

I also want to say here at the top, there may be a question about this later, but much like Balance, I springboarded this season off of The Curse of Strahd,

which is

one of the

book campaigns that they say.

Here's a question from Keith, Griffin.

Let me set it up for you, okay?

I've enjoyed the many different styles and narrative directions you've experimented with over the years.

This season felt like a return to goofier, more reverent style, similar to the tone and balance.

Was this a conscious choice or something that happened organically?

Do you have conversations about tone and style before you start recording a new season?

I mean, yes.

I mean, you two, I think we've said as much in our sort of talking about this, but like we definitely

wanted to take some of the pressure off of ourselves to like

set up huge lore huge narrative before like starting the game i think that's the main difference and then whenever an opportunity comes to then like build off of whatever and improvise whatever like we can still follow that principle i think it's like honestly it is one of our great challenges on this show is like trusting ourselves to

to come up with stuff on the fly that can like eventually turn into, you know, character beats and stuff like that and I think it is when this show works works the best so I think that was the first conversation is like how do we kind of focus on that and I think that talking about a setting uh

that is so kind of silly really makes that a possibility uh I was also looking at Curse of Strahd at the time

and was that those two pieces kind of connected like it would be funny to do a season that was just about trying to kill Dracula but instead of him being this scary dark warlock, he was, I don't know, cartoon Dracula.

I will say it also never, I feel like there was one rule with this show, and like,

if there's an exception to this, I don't know what it is, but there were more tender moments, but nothing, I think, was played with 100%

sincerity.

Like,

we didn't get to a place where characters were having deeper, earnest conversations about their feelings.

Yes.

It didn't get deep.

It didn't get earnest.

And that is one rule, as wild as all the things were.

And that is something where like

is tough sometimes when like because the kinds of stories you want to tell, sometimes there's that compulsion like, oh, let's dig deep into this.

This is interesting.

I wonder what's going on.

And like,

I don't, we never consciously decided this, but like we all sort of, I think, subconsciously agreed, like, we're not going to get deep with these characters.

We're not going to get into their inner workings.

We're going to understand them at a primary and perhaps secondary level, but we're not going to get super deep.

I want to give special kudos to Travis for this with Mutt, because I think we all feel this compulsion of like, how can I make this a bigger?

How can I make this a bigger, more emotionally resonant thing?

Like, is this an opportunity to kind of like include a little bit of that spice in here?

And at the end, your resolution with the invisible man, I thought was truly, truly inspired.

Yeah.

Truly,

uh, a genius, very like true to character.

I feel like you learn more about Mutt from that choice than any conversation they could have had about, like, you know, maybe we both do carry a lot of generational trauma.

Like, instead of that, Mutt saying, like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, like, tells me a lot more about Mutt and his like avoidance.

And there doesn't have to be like I don't know we don't have to fix Mutt by the end of this thing But I do certainly feel like I learned a lot about Mutt in that moment.

He's one of your best characters Trap.

Yeah, yeah I had a lot of fun.

I told Griffin afterwards there was a I can't remember exactly when the conversation happened or how like how it came up but something about like Mutt being hired as a guide and like babysitter for for Lady Godwin and for Philo and then treating it like that of basically being a little bit like, yeah, man, I'm part of the team but I'm also like on the clock trying to keep them from dying and trying to like keep things like I'm here to make sure you guys don't eat poisonous thing like things you find while you're out for it's harder to do it's it's harder in some ways to do a character that is

like disciplined is probably the word right like uh i i think duck is a good example of this with regards to like his forestry work, right?

It's harder in some ways to be a professional because it assumes a level of like experience and credibility that can be hard to roleplay, right?

There's a reason a lot of role-playing characters are like vagabonds or shack of all trades because it's like, cause I don't really know how to do horse stuff.

So I can't be like a horse.

They can't get fired for doing wild shit.

Yeah.

But it is, there's a fun stability, I think, to having a character that is that settled to where they know themselves and they know what their job is.

And I think that it actually the structure is helpful because I think it lets other people play off of that.

I will also say a combination of the strength of like Ranger, like the Ranger inherently is like, hey, here's a thing they're good at.

Like this wedge of space is what they're good at.

But also, man, I got some really good roles when it came to like

sneaking through the forest or finding tracks and stuff like that.

That was like, oh, okay, good.

My character isn't pretending to be good at this stuff, which is the other side of it.

I wasn't planning on the invisible man being a like character character in this season, but anytime you would do like a really, really good role, I always thought it was the funniest solution to be like, and then you find the invisible man's footprints.

Yeah.

And it's like, shit, I'm writing a check for the invisible man that I do not know how to cash.

Travis, is it?

This just real quick, because this is for my own edification.

The name is an obvious clue, but is it safe to say that maybe a little bit of

Crawford's personality you kind of took from your grandfather?

Oh, 100%.

It seemed like a lot of his personality was in there.

Yeah,

our mom's dad, Crawford Kitchen.

One, I just like the name Crawford.

And Crawford Kitchen.

Crawford Kitchen is killable.

Yeah.

But I mean, it's also in the last name, too, because like it was basically that mixed with a kind of bloodhound personality, like an older hound dog kind of deal, where it's just like, yeah, man, I don't know.

I'm just happy to be here, kind of feeling of like getting excited about things.

But like our grandfather Crawford would also occasionally just like mutter jokes to us while like mom and his wife Diane were like, Ty, our stepgrandma would like be having conversations.

And I remember one time they were having this conversation and Diane was like like completely monopolizing mom's time.

And

Papa just like muttering to me, like, yeah, man, she's just my daughter, and I'd love to get to talk to her, but I'm never going to see her.

Oh, Diane,

and like, that it cracked me up so much.

And, like, the incredible mustache on that.

Oh, my God.

Think how I am at my head, Canon for Mudd, is like, is Papa Crockett?

And that's like the man who taught me all about metal detection.

Just fucking talk about it.

Yeah, very much.

Cool, very much.

It's a very good tribute, Trip.

I am going to start imposing a one-answer per question rule because we've done exactly one, and we're well into this.

So let's start.

Let's pick up the page.

No more than one minute per answer, everyone.

Oh, my God.

It's starting to feel like a speech and debate competition, Justin.

Yeah, well, get a little discipline.

I got one here for dad from, I think, Fee.

When it comes to DD classes, I'm a huge fan of mixing about flavor text and game mechanics.

Philo is a great example of this, being an

artificer, alchemist, and a man of the cloth, as opposed to to a class like Cleric or Paladin.

What inspired this class choice?

And did it inspire any of the rest of y'all?

Can consider other potential background/slash class pairings?

I really was excited about playing an artificer.

I just, I had, I mean,

goofed around with it a little bit on a couple other projects, but something about really trying to play within those confines.

I seem kind of drawn to builder characters, engineer-type characters, characters, and the fact that he was a magic user and could use magic, but at the same time had to incorporate that into some kind of physical context, the tools he used, the things that's that's the coolest shit about, that's the main reason to play artificer, I feel like, is not just the stuff they can do.

It's because each of their spells is like a little bomb or whatever.

I also feel like though that

Philo is one of the best, I think that

you've ever done on Taz in terms of, or that any of us have done, in terms of like the character really working in concert with what the class is.

Like everything that you would do that was part of your like toolkit, a lot of times in Taz, the comedy is like, this is such a weird thing that I'm able to do, right?

It's that juxtaposition.

But I think with Philo, it was really interesting because everything you did felt very plausible.

within who this character was, right?

There was a really good like continuity between this is who I understand this person to be and these are the like the mechanical skills that are available to them.

Yeah.

Really work nicely together.

In my head, Kana, when Philo does something with magic and technology, he is an absolute expert in his field, one of the greatest of our generation.

And then when he's having to make choices out in the world, something misfires in his brain and he's like, I put the hat on and press the button.

Like there's something, there's, he knows what he knows, which is potions and technology.

What he doesn't know is how to stay alive, making basic sort of human judgments in the face of danger and traps.

Well, I think that that also holds with, and I made a conscious effort to do that because he basically was a monk, a friar who had lived in a monastery and had, you know, done his community work.

And that was, you know, he hadn't been out in the world very much.

And, you know, and I think that that's a good analogy.

I can also deal with another question or two that we're on here about,

well, you asked me about why he put the helmet on.

Yeah, we have literally, I'm looking at the list of questions.

There's three of them about putting the helmet on, how you felt about not having a human body, and like what twists and unexpected things happened this season.

And this was, I think, the one that

started it all basically to go behind the curtain real quick.

That was supposed to introduce to you Van Helsing in the body of Pinocchio, which Dracula trapped him in.

And I was like leaving clues, like, there's a skeleton.

If you look around, maybe you'll find some of Van Helsing's stuff.

And Dad was like, zoop, boop, boop, Pinocchio.

And the panic, I don't know if you could pick up on the panic in my voice where I was like, okay, is this like fucking,

are they roommates in there?

What's going on?

What I thought was it would give control over those disembodied hands.

Now, here's the thing, Dad.

I love knowing what you thought was going to happen because from the fact that there was a skeleton strapped in there

and the hands were still moving around.

This is a helmet that lets you control the hands, but at what terrible cost?

Yeah, Dad,

if you were walking around and you saw a dead skeleton, former human, dead body holding a hamburger in their hands, would your thought not be like, I bet that hamburger is what killed like.

But who knows what?

Would you think like, I bet that hamburger gives me the power to fly.

Why not?

Hurbbers were in the danger zone.

Couldn't be.

I thought maybe he had died happy with that helmet on, and that, you know,

he wanted to die happy.

Centuries ago,

and no, that really is what I thought.

He died of dehydration because he never wanted to stop controlling the hands that had.

But once it, I got to tell you, I was completely shocked with the Pinocchio thing.

I did not see it coming.

No kidding.

But

I almost almost immediately embraced it because it was such a funny concept.

And

it kind of gave me

an out in the fact that suddenly this character,

it would be so funny to see this guy.

And I wouldn't be necessarily tied to the whole cleric, religious.

character which brother philo was and i was a little hesitant about playing brother Philo.

And I got to throw this in.

My inspiration for him was

a fictional character named Brother Cadfile,

who was a monk who solved mysteries,

a great book series.

And that was kind of what that was.

But I didn't want to play necessarily another

religious character in this.

Straight up, man.

Another Claire Asher.

And the fact that then Pinocchio could then become not a tank, but the Pope, a fighter.

The way it went, though, and the way he accepted it so quickly, I think those two, that's a really good example of like

where randomness and choice kind of like make a new reality when you're doing a role-playing story.

Because like

that vibe of I put the hat on and I'm fine with what happened.

It gave Philo this vibe of like, I don't know, he doesn't make a lot of good choices, but things seem to basically work out for him.

Okay.

Yeah.

like he's, it's, I see, it's, it's like it reminds me.

I was re-watching uh Deadpool 2, and it reminds me a little bit of Domino.

You know what I mean?

Like the bus crashing around Philo because he's crossing the street in an inopportune moment.

He has good luck powers.

Right.

Yeah.

I

also feel like there is a

meta story happening about Philo, where he is a man who is somewhat detached from reality.

And I think that that's maybe a facet of his origin.

But the quickness with which you were like, Yeah, no, I'm a puppet now and I love being a puppet.

And then there was a scene when you met on

where you found out that the turbo cardinal had turned into a vampire and killed everyone in your whole order.

And Van Helsing was trying to check in with you after, like, hey, man, are you doing okay?

And your response was like, yeah, you know, I'm getting really used to being a puppet.

And Van Helsing was like,

okay.

I tried to play that moment like Van Helsing is worried about you a little bit.

And so I tried to slide in little warnings to you throughout.

It's Van Helsing like, hey, man, just don't lose sight of the stuff that.

And you're like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Anyway, I'm going to turn myself into the Pope internet.

Like, there's a, like,

it's a character who I think is genuinely very interesting because it's like, I don't think Philo is completely in touch with.

And it sounds apocryphal, but I think going into the puppet body, I decided, well,

I think you would lose some humanity.

Not all of it.

Not all of it.

Still a key.

Anyway, we broke our one answer per question.

Immediately.

Immediately.

But I answered four questions.

Yes,

we did.

I will say also on the subject of other big twists, when you guys killed on, didn't think that that was going to.

My thought was like this could go one of a few ways.

You take the sword out and you're like, yeah, I'll keep the sword.

And then on comes back.

And then you have to, maybe you have to fight a god, what?

But then you just like did it.

Yeah, we just killed him

and you took excalibur or took scalibur you didn't think we were gonna you had to know we were gonna take the sword this is the second time i've been sort of

my hubris has been my undoing you can't put it in front of us not to

steal it

I hear one of my cats upstairs crying.

You know what they're, you know what they're upset about.

Just like the state of things and whatever.

No, they're only ever wanting one thing, and that's for me to get the smalls out.

Dad, we don't know how to.

Yeah, they love the smooth bird.

Dad, we want our smooth bird.

We don't have jobs.

We can't buy our own food.

We don't know how to order things.

Dad, we're so scared.

We're cats and we've gained complete human intelligence.

What's happening?

Where are we?

Yeah.

Where are we?

But you know what?

I calm them right down with smalls because you're going to get a package of smalls, right?

You're going to open it up.

You're going to put it in front of your cats there, put it into a bowl, whatever you're going to, I don't know your business.

But when you put it out there, these cats are going to freak out.

And you're also going to see some long-lasting effects.

In my experience, at least, my cats have been a little healthier.

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Sorry, Trav.

That was great.

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Hey, this week we're coming to...

Sorry to interrupt.

I just kind of burst in.

Okay.

Yeah.

Sorry.

Hey, I'm also sorry.

I'm also sorry.

And I'm here and I'm interrupting too.

If you're coming to

our shows this week in San Antonio and Austin, thank you.

If you're not already planning on coming, why not?

We want to see you there.

We need you there.

Join the website.

What are you doing?

It's so great.

Yeah.

If you're coming to the show and you want to have a question,

you got a question you want answered, you want a fear read aloud, we got you.

Email that to mbmbam at maximumfund.org and put your city in the subject line in Austin.

And also doing what, Trap?

What are we doing in Austin, buddy?

Well, we're doing Adventure Zone versus Hercules, and it's going to be a real treat.

You're going to also feel happier than you've ever felt in your entire life.

Yeah, we're also coming to Utah and California later this year.

Tickets for all those shows are on sale now.

More info and ticket links are available at bit.ly forward slash McElroy Tours.

Oh, we also have new merch because it's a new month.

Yeah, we got a new month, new merch, new you.

Well, yeah, sort of.

We've got a brand new Gerald t-shirt over there designed by Lynn Doyle.

Go to mackeroymerch.com and check it out.

And 10% of all merch proceeds this month will be donated to Equality Florida, which is dedicated to securing full equality for Florida's LGBTQ community.

So go to macroymerch.com to get yours now.

My name is Jordan Cruciola, and I love movies.

But you know what I might love even more?

Talking about movies.

The directors, actors, and writers that join me every week on Feeling Scene love to talk about movies too.

Like our recent co-host, the writer and director Justin Simeon.

And I love the premise of your show, Feeling Seen.

I think that's kind of always my goal when I'm making something.

Nothing touches my heart more than when someone comes out of my movie and says, Oh my god, I never thought I would see myself.

So hang out with us and geek out about watching movies, making movies, and the ways the movies we love speak to us directly.

You might just start asking folks around you, hey, what movie character made you feel seen?

We're doing it every week at maximumfun.org.

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Okay, another question.

I got one for you.

May I read one?

Raps ask: How many pages of Draft of this diary did you have prepared for the episode's intro?

Were you picking which one to use depending on what the party's goal was, or did you have specific information you needed to give out for that episode, and then improve the page's contents on the day?

Thank you.

Yeah, improv the pages.

I did improve the content

constantly.

No, I mean, it would be, it would be, it would be, I would love a world in which I could write an entire diary for Dracula, and then as we play an episode, be like, I bet this will be Germane today.

But I did write all of those as part of sort of my

loose prep for each episode and sort of think about.

I don't really love the previously on thing, like as a rule on

any show.

And so having it be a kind of, I don't know,

diegetic part of the

show, I thought was

a good solve for that.

Thank you.

I just did the last season, so I thought you were talking about me.

I'm so sorry.

Go ahead.

Oh, hey, I got one from Steve.

How fun was it performing these characters in live shows?

Now that the campaign is over, will you continue to use the versus Dracula characters in live shows?

Um, it's a blah.

I mean, I think that Mutt is one of my favorite characters to perform live, um, a little bit because his costume is basically just clothes, which is nice.

Huge upgrade.

Huge.

Uh, but it also is just like

Man, it's really fun to play these characters that we've spent a lot of time with and are very comfortable playing, but without a lot of burden of like rich inner life so much of like there's very little of like well they wouldn't do that oh and they've already interacted with this person and like oh we've had this big character development so they wouldn't make that comment anymore it's it's very much just like playing a cartoon character of getting to be like yeah man um i just get to step in and do it and react to the thing the way that they would react to it and have fun with it yeah i will also say as as dm for it uh having just a huge slate of public domain works to try and like choose from is like just enough of a

boundary on prep work and idea

stuff that

it has been very helpful to just look at it and be like, oh, fuck, I don't know.

We could do great gas.

I have one I want to ask.

Yeah.

I loved this season, says Abby.

Were there any plans that had to be changed or reworked due to unexpected character deaths or crazy roles?

I.e., was the Wolfman on or Frankenstein going to a bigger role that got cut short?

You touched on a couple of these.

What was the original plan for Van Helsingstroll before Brother Philo pushed that button?

Yeah, I did some of it.

Killing on, I did not expect and was wild, although I was happy to kind of like, I don't know, tie back into that at the end

with Mutt's sort of scene.

Frankenstein, I don't know.

I had Frankenstein pretty fleshed out

and

was then just kind of like going to use him as I was going to use him, but I don't like forcing, I don't know, character interactions down your guy's throats.

And so you kind of just hung out with him for a little bit, cut his arm off.

I had a beat where I was considering bringing him back in at the end, but

again, like.

It wasn't very memorable the first time.

I guess I'm not sure it would have hit, you know.

Yes.

I think Wolfman getting killed was a huge surprise.

Did not expect it.

I feel like I tried to give the Wolfman plenty of opportunities.

Yeah.

No, yeah, no, but that was...

I don't know.

we, we haven't played like that in a while, where a character just vengefully slays.

This is actually it's great.

It's

a great character moment, but yeah.

I didn't get to touch on that.

But I think that one of the things that was really helpful is clear good versus evil, like clear sides.

And we dramatically, that's not always the most interesting, but if you're not trying to do a drama, it's pretty helpful to know that like, that's a bad guy.

And even if it's not a a bad guy, there's something about the

iconographic power of some of these characters where, like, even if you kill them, you know, you're not really killing them, right?

Like, even in the fiction of the worlds we've made, like,

you're not going to kill Dracula.

I mean, you can't, you know, you're not going to kill any of these guys.

They could come back anytime.

It's magical.

And I think that's.

I mean, I have a great idea to that effect that I had ready this season, but

did not end up deploying.

I do want to highlight, I think, the warehouse kind of chapter of it was maybe some of the most fun I had.

I think it was my favorite, yeah.

The like series of like, it was a great kind of like throw-off joke when we talked about everybody having to intricately go back and rebite like the people of like trying to like track, like, okay, then you bit me.

Yeah, we were making up entire world rules in real time, which is fucking so fun.

And then having to like say, like, wait a minute, if that's how, if that's how wolfmanism works, then that's got to be crazy for everybody who's a wolf person.

It's got to be just a constant.

You would have to, your Google calendar would be like, bite Ricky, bite Dave, get bitten by Ricky.

There was a moment I think I may have misread it, but like it was one of those moments where as we were doing it, there's that sense of like, maybe we should just stay here.

Like, maybe, maybe we should forget about Dracula, just live in this, this, this situation for a few weeks.

The payoff with the goldfish made me incredibly happy.

Yeah,

Yeah, where he became a revolutionary against the Wolfman forces.

I feel like

to get back to Godwin killing Wolfman, I feel like Godwin was great for me this season to remind, to like keep the stakes in mind.

I feel like you had the best sort of motivation to keep going and really were great at pulling stuff along.

But we would get in situations where, and the warehouse is a great example of this, where

these are monsters, like these are monsters who kill and eat human beings like they are and they're fun they're fun guys to party with but like i think also there's this other side of every monster in this story where it's like they're really likable they also murder people they murder people and a lot of them eat the people and so godwin was great at being like don't forget

they also murder and kill like these are dangerous creatures and they are sympathetic and fun to hang out with, but like they are killers.

And I felt like that that was genuinely helpful.

Also for me as DM to be like, you're right.

These are dangerous monsters.

You would want to slay them.

Speaking of

Godwin, we have a question from Pseudonym.

And this is one I've wanted to know about.

I've always wondered about the body that Lady Godwin's head was grafted onto.

I know she was a gladiator of some kind who won every battle until her last one, but was there ever a fuller backstory there?

Have you ever considered introducing the body's previous owner as another character?

Okay.

Why is the act's name Jennifer Myers?

So they, okay, so I was puzzled by this, but they haven't heard the last episode of the season, right?

At this point.

Oh, right.

So they wouldn't have heard

at the end.

There's an incredible teaser about

the anti-Godwin.

Yeah.

The goddamn thing that came to me like

that morning.

Like, oh, shit.

It really was an incredible moment of collaborative storytelling where Justin was like, shut the fuck up.

And read it.

I wrote this thing, and it's the introduction of the anti-Godwin.

And this is, this is my ending.

It's not a collaborative story.

So you're being sarcastic, especially after it came after a pretty lengthy.

Like, all right, and what's Mutt up to?

And I was like, okay, cool.

And now he has 30 seconds of introducing the script that Justin wrote.

Read it.

It's just

a great gag.

and I couldn't do it with any help.

History needed it, and I couldn't risk anybody else getting their fingerprints on it.

If you could attempt to remedy one sort of small plot hole for me in this moment, live in person, when you all sieged the city of Lumino and crashed the car, Dragula, you did see all of your bones go flying out of the

trunk of the automobile.

Yeah.

Did those bones then sort of re remuscle?

Yeah, you saw the bones,

I think you saw the bones.

So, you just saw the bones, so Griffin, what you're saying is you never saw me die.

Interesting, okay.

So, the suggestion here is that the anti-godwin that shows up at the end has no bones, or different bones, they're not my bones, no, man.

It's not my bones, that's not my beautiful bones.

Uh, what's Jennifer Myers?

What is Jennifer Myers gonna be?

Yeah, what the fuck is that?

Yeah.

Was it just the first name that came to your mind?

Jennifer Myers,

I thought it was really funny to.

I always think it's funny when there are like hard names for weapons, right?

Like Oathbringer or whatever, right?

So

if the sword is just named, I like the idea.

I have had a lot of named weapons.

And I've continued that proud tradition in our next arc

of another named axe.

But I just really liked the idea of a mundane name for

a weapon because she had no real connection to it.

So it was just like, I feel like someone said, pick a name for it.

And she just picked the first name

that came to mind.

I love that.

I'll tell you what threw me is the first time I heard it, for some reason my brain connected to Stephanie Myers, who I think wrote the Twilight Books.

Yes, and I, at first, I was like, is it named after an author?

And my brain just like chewed on that for like four or five episodes.

And with my eye,

here's okay.

Here's the actual like

I have gotten more comfortable, and I think it is a kind of thing that is just specific to this

kind of thing that we do.

I think that it's okay to throw out stuff that doesn't land initially, and that can feel kind of uncomfortable.

But I've gotten pretty comfortable with just opening my mouth and seeing what comes out and then finding it later, right?

Because

if I throw out a completely, and this is something we've tried to do with other characters, I think, and it doesn't work.

If I try to have pages upon pages of mythos figured out for myself, it's not very interesting to figure out.

But if I have like questions for myself, like, why is the axe named Jeffrey Myers?

I thought I'd I'd have a satisfying answer to that by the end of the season.

Didn't work out that way.

It happened.

You know, not all the.

I did consider the axe one at one point becoming sentient and being like, we've done that.

We've done that though.

Yeah.

We've done sentient.

Well, guys, we've been doing this for 10 fucking years.

We've done everything at this point.

Except not murdering.

Like other than that, like they have to have axes.

So like, do they, you not want them to talk?

Like,

uh,

all right.

What else do we want to get up on?

Grab, you got one you want to ask?

Daran asked, uh, the season of Taz has been my favorite since balance.

I'm dying to know what song was stuck in Dracula's head.

Oh,

um, I assume it was 3-11's amber is the color of her energy.

Uh, so that was sort of, I was trying to think of like a resolution for Dracula.

And this was me like leaning into my baser instincts of like, what if the villain did have like a secret motivation for the things that he did beyond like

biting everyone biting everyone in town uh and i am very interested in the concept of like when an immortal being eventually loses their mind because like if you're alive for too long I can't imagine that that that continues to be a pleasant experience mentally.

And so the idea of like Dracula being driven to do all of this wild shit because he had a song stuck in his head for several centuries

and how to resolve resolve that um so the song that that was stuck in his head i i uh i i tried to set up as at least having the notes c-a-b-b-a-g-e uh in it uh but it's not that wasn't a reference to it was not like if you punch those into uh some sheet music you're gonna play uh you know five for fighting superman or something so there wasn't a specific song that you had in mind no i wasn't like sourcing some some i wasn't doing a needle drop uh and i could have done it with some sort of public domain music.

That maybe I'll explore that for next season.

Um, Travis, I have a question here from Coliff.

I didn't expect Crawford's change of heart about killing the Invisible Man, but I really liked how it played out.

Did Crawford's decision surprise you in the moment?

Have the other players ever been surprised by their own character choices?

Um,

so I just wanted to, because I know we talked about it, but I did want to, when that was happening, I felt my own impulse to be like, time for a big dramatic scene and resolution of this thing.

And it was just like, yeah, that's not, not only does that not fit the moment of the thing, it just wasn't what that would be.

And I started thinking about like very much, you know, the kind of like rugged Appalachian man I was kind of basing mutt off of and that idea of like, hmm, I'm going to have a big emotional moment.

And it just didn't resonate there.

And I just like the idea of him being being like, yeah, I get it.

I see the problem.

We don't need to figure that out.

I see what you're trying to do.

That was very much a conversation between Travis and Griffin, in addition to a conversation between Invisible Man and Mutt of me saying, Are you sure you don't, are you sure that you don't want to make more of a meal of this?

Are you sure, man?

Yeah.

Okay.

I'm glad it went the way that it did, though.

But it's like if a friend started saying, like, hey, man, I just want to talk to you about this problem.

And you instantly understand the problem that they're addressing.

And you're like, oh, yeah, I get it.

You're absolutely right.

I will work on that.

But they've been preparing like a full explanation of it.

And I'm like, no, no, no, I get it.

Yeah, you're right.

I do need to work on that.

Here's one that I think is interesting.

In past T-Tazz's, you've talked about the balance between really fleshing out the PCs before a campaign versus keeping it vague and discovering them as you play.

How do you guys feel about the characters in Taz versus Dracula in terms of pre-planning and discovery?

Yeah, Juicy.

I mean, you touched on this with Godwin, right?

Like leaving questions.

Yeah.

Here is one.

Here is one thing that I didn't

That is that I don't know is is interesting about God one I thought at least that and this is terms of like pre-planning and discovery or whatever

I came up with the idea of I like the idea of I wanted to do some sort of barbarian But I wanted to like really play against the type of the character So I had and I really like playing high status characters

And I thought that like a high society woman who has a barbarian's body was like a really I think that was a fun idea.

Who's your most high status?

Augustus Parsons?

I mean, if you think about like Taco's high status, Augustus's high status.

That's a fair point.

You know, I like playing that kind of character.

I think it's fun.

So I came up with the idea, and as I started playing it, and this is something that like didn't occur until we started being in the show,

the drama of her story

was a really close parallel unintentionally to people who are in bodies that they don't love and that they aren't comfortable in.

And I had to, and I realized as I was doing it, like, well,

I don't want to try to tell other people's story, even though I didn't, especially not one that I like didn't set out to tell, right?

So I had to make the decision at that moment that like.

She is going to be someone who this body that she is in, it's about someone who is loving the body that they are in and learning to love the body that they are in.

And that was not a story that I had to, like, that I set out to tell, but it was one that I had to kind of become aware of as we were doing it.

Right.

Because otherwise, and we have definitely done this before,

just through improving and then sort of like finding the things that feel organic because you have lived them so many times and heard the story so many times, like you end up unintentionally paralleling stuff that you didn't necessarily

plan to tell.

Yeah,

I think you did

a good job with that.

I'm not the right person to make that call, I'm sure.

I don't know about that, Griffin.

Who better?

As far as the Mutt goes, there was very little preplay.

Like, I think of any character I've ever played in Adventure Zone or anything else, it was the one that I most said, like, I wonder if I can find the email pitches for these.

Yeah, that I was like,

I know I want him to be like an Appalachian, like, mountain man monster hunter.

And I think Griffin had asked, like, what the motivation is

for, like, why

he wants to kill Dracula.

And I think I was like, yeah, like a family, like a family of monster hunters.

And like, they've, but then, like, the stuff with like the invisible man and go get his teeth to make, like, that was all like, okay, cool, man.

And what I really actually loved about that and continued to be a thing throughout is that there was no passion.

in Mutt's desire to kill.

Oh, no, I think it was like, he wants to retire from monster hunting, but doesn't want to do it with like the Muttner family name being like associated with failure.

So wants to kill Dracula so that he can comfortably retire.

And like, so there was no passion in it.

There was no like, I am a monster slayer, good versus evil.

It's just a job, you know, it's just like, oh, I do it because that's what the Muttner family does.

And getting to play it is like,

not like full of vitriol and emotion, but just like, yeah, man, it's what I've always done.

It's what I know, man.

I think for Philo, first of all, I think the big prep for me was learning the new class, learning the artificer.

And I think that kind of informed a lot of Philo slash Pinocchio's personality after that because

he had to be a scavenger.

And I think that became kind of a keynote of his personality that, you know, he'd pick up this junk and, you know, saved his own body and used magic to shrink things down into components and that whole junk dealer MacGyver kind of angle I think was kind of informative for

he's a crossway MacGyver and Fred Sanford

I can see that I loved the sense of exploration or of experimentation that Philo approached everything with I also want to highlight when Philo turned into a fish to swim into the heart and swim up the bloodstream.

And that was one of my favorite moments as Mutt is that I was like, I'm going to sneak over there.

You guys wait here and I'll signal you when the coast is clear.

And then you guys both instantly did other things.

Just beefed in.

And in character being like, okay.

And then Mutt turns back and neither one of them are there.

It's no fun to just hide.

I know everything you're hiding.

I did want to just real quick, I found Justin's Slack message to me, December 14th, 2023.

You think a barbarian would be okay?

Fighter just looks really boring.

Me, sure.

Justin.

Okay, here's the pitch.

She has body parts from several different fighters, but her head doesn't know about fighting.

So, rage for her is like letting muscle memory take over.

Oh, oh, oh, fuck.

Her head is like Maggie Smith.

That's the end of communication between me and Justin on his character.

Oh, that's how, and that's how the magic happens, folks.

That's how

the character creation process.

Oh, oh, oh, fuck.

Her head is like Maggie Smith.

Kick ass, dude.

Uh, this one's for me, but I think we can all talk about it because it's a question that shows up in a lot of these.

Or, uh, let's see, Zip and a lot of others say this question is for Griffin.

I was curious to know if there was a public domain character you really wanted to use,

but for some reason they got put on the cutting room floor.

Also, for everyone else, was there a character you really wanted to see in the adventure once you knew Griffin was going for public domain characters?

Is this your trailer for upcoming live shows?

No, I don't have any live show ideas i have some if we wanted to return to taz versus something else for like another short season some ideas but i don't think i'm like i don't know sitting on big ones uh but man if you look at the list of public domain characters it's

crazy how much stuff thank you humanity yeah thanks humanity thanks for having me such a wild thing to say man

if you look at all the characters ever created in human history other than the last 75 years?

We've really done some amazing stuff over the millennium.

No, no, I'm saying as a...

Like Homer?

Ooh.

Fuck it.

Have you guys seen Odysseus?

This wild, man, he's going to all the different islands.

We could do that for free.

Like, no problem.

This is what I'm going to do.

We don't have to pay Homer's estate a single dollar.

I mentioned this earlier, right?

I think that there are a lot of ways of looking at the choices that largely I have made this season.

Just real quick, I love this.

Griffin, just I want to say Taz versus Comedia del Art before I forget about it.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, put that out there.

Taz versus Dante's Inferno.

Okay, go on, Griffin.

You hear about the dark pictures anthropology and you think

that is a

crass marketing effort to take these.

Is Guernica in the public domain yet?

Can we do Taz versus Guernica?

To take these great works and put them into the grinder to fill with a Tom Cruise sausage.

You see that and you say gross.

As an artist,

capital A artist and writer, looking at the list of public domain works is like challenges that are fun and exciting.

I feel like how can we do a wolf?

How can we do a Wolfman?

How can we do a Pinocchio and have it make sense in this world?

That's so much easier than just coming up with a whole new fucking idea.

Well, that could be

easy.

Kidding aside, though, I know we kind of backed it not kidding that's how we backed into it with a joke sort of but like it is i think another strength of the season is that

so much of the like

chunky shoe leather of world building is sort of pre-built right it's dracula moving on like you know what i mean like yeah right there's a shared

like vocabulary and then anything we and then anything we do and any choices we make with those characters is the informative stuff like okay it's like dracula but he loves to party with Wolfman.

I know that, but yeah, it was, it's great.

It's genuinely super duper, especially for live shows.

It's so fucking hard to come up with an idea for a live show.

It is so hard to come up with an idea of something that's going to work in like an hour and a half.

You got to onboard some wiggle room if like, yeah, if things go wrong and there's an audience, and like there's all these different parts that are just like impossible to start putting down the groundwork for.

And having the prompt of

the great Gatsby

Moby Dick is like, yeah, it's like, oh, okay, well, how can you turn Moby Dick into like a D D thing?

That's so, that's so actionable and so exciting and so fun to like

figure out how those two things interweave.

And so like, I genuinely, I don't, I don't look forward to going back to a season where I don't have this huge, like,

I don't know, creative pool to be able to.

I think Sherlock Holmes would be fun.

Holmes is big.

Travis, like, I think the only request I got all season for like, can you please put this guy was

Sherlock Holmes in your sort of like conclusion.

But I felt like Mutt had so much stuff that he had changed about the world fundamentally.

Not about him.

Mutt was unchanged.

There was no change.

Yes, absolutely.

He was the rock in the middle of the Zen garden that is not interested in shifting around at all.

But you know, there's a lot of detective fiction that could be parlayed into.

I mean, like, some Agatha Christie.

If we did do sherlock holmes i would want to play a different game i would want to play i would want to play sherlock homes holes consulting detective like it's so weird to do like we have played a game called sherlock holmes and a vampire before it's very wild if we were to do it like a different sherlock holmes game than our sherlock holes in a vampire game with sherlock holes and a vampire yeah that's a good point

um can i ask may i ask one Sure, sure.

From Theo.

Theo is very complimentary about how how we're not quite as bad at DD players as we used to be.

I love all the compliments in these guys.

It really hits home.

Thank you.

Thank you, Theo.

Yeah.

But then Theo asks: And what is something in the world of TTRPGS that you are yet to explore and looking forward to in the future?

I would like to lead off by saying we have really wanted to do like a big

Heinleiny

space opera.

Yeah, sure.

You know,

we do kind of do that already.

Well, I know.

Yeah, well,

with Hootie and the Nannies.

And a little bit with the Star Blast.

That world is so much more.

I mean, this is the thing about Hootie and the Nannies, though.

And, like, some people may not even be.

I don't know.

If you don't listen to live ones, you haven't heard of Hootie and the Nanny's, but like, I've never heard Hootie.

It's an original, like, the idea of like a space opry is like, is a, is a, I like that vibe better than that's a more fun space world than we're going to make if we set out to do like, we want our mass effect you know but yeah sure all right i am still very interested to see

i want to we've always tried talked about trying to do a horror and like

i don't know

if we could pull it off i legitimately don't know if we could make it i mean monster of the week is very much a horror

game yeah but like we've never done monster of the week i mean i wouldn't call supernatural like a horror it's exciting but you're not trying to, you're not trying to scare people,

right?

Like, I don't know that we've done one other than, I guess, like, no, I mean, I don't think we've done one trying to scare people.

And I don't know that we could.

Like, I don't know if we could say, I don't know the context in which we could expose people to that.

Like, we've talked about trying to do something live around Halloween, but it's like that may be an absolute bomb, like live on.

I still, really, I still really want to play 10 candles.

Do you guys remember that one?

Me telling you the base of 10 candles.

You have 10 candles and it's sort of like your HP and you have these cards with your like traits on it that you burn in order in a with one of the candles in a little bowl.

I don't know if we could do that in a live show actually because I don't think that most theaters will allow you to set flame to paper.

Yeah, no.

Yeah.

Probably let you use electric candles.

That's not as cool.

I think though, in general, another one of the things that I think worked in this season as far as like stuff we haven't explored yet is I think that sometimes you can get in your own way by trying to say, like, I want to do something I haven't done yet, something completely original, something that doesn't feel like I'm rehashing old stuff.

And I think that that isn't necessarily always conducive to creativity.

Where I think, like, for example, I think one could make a comparison between like Merle and Philo, both men of the cloth, and blah, blah, blah.

But they ended up being wildly different characters and like, you know, making different choices than each other would make.

And so I think that trying to get into a mindset of like, well, I want to do something completely different than we've ever done before can

block creativity sometimes.

Yeah.

I also just want to say that I'm deeply interested in the entire sort of kids on bikes

product.

I'd really really like to do one of those.

I don't know which of those myriad things we would want to do, but they have sort of a system for most genres, it seems.

Here's one from Helena who says, and others, who asked, did you anticipate this campaign running as long as it did, or did you expect it to last longer definitely not the latter

this was this is part of a sort of initiative we've kind of taken after ether see to do shorter to do shorter seasons like the what uchraspace was was that four or five episodes we yeah i mean we've been trying to i guess steeplechase How long was Steeplechase?

How many episodes?

That was like 30-ish, right?

That was about the same length as Dracula.

Yeah, I think we've been trying to kind of like do shorter form stuff.

42.

42.

Wow.

I think that we had a conversation after recording a few episodes of Taz vs.

Dracula where we were like,

we should do a little, we should do more with this.

We should try to, you know, see how far this thing goes.

If anything, I will say, as we were trying to plan for the next season, there was, I would say, multiple times over a series of months where someone would say to Griffin, like, how many more episodes do you think this is going to go so we can plan with it?

And Griffin's like, I don't know, man.

Maybe eight.

And then it'd be like, oh, no, no, maybe 10, maybe 12 more.

Yeah, I think it was originally the date I said was, yeah, it'll wrap in April.

And I think it just finished up in August.

So I missed that by just a little bit.

It's fucking hard to figure that shit out when you're doing it weekly.

It's like really tough to kind of like, I don't know, adjust the scope of the thing with that kind of turnaround.

Hey, let's talk about what we're doing next.

Huh?

I would love to do that.

Yeah.

What's going on?

We're going to be playing poker.

And then just kind of talk about the hands that we got.

They're going to know.

We got the silliness out of our system.

It's time to get serious again.

Hardcore.

Let's secure rules.

Lots of them.

Pluses, minuses.

You won't.

You won't believe how many D's.

When we sit in together to try and figure out what the next season is, I feel like we all kind of make hard sells for our ideas if we have any.

And

I think Travis, lead off.

So in doing this, I think it was Griffin who proposed the challenge of like, think about the thing that you would run that just makes complete and absolute sense that you would be the one doing like that it just makes complete sense that you're doing it.

And literally that night, I was trying to fall asleep and I couldn't and it just smashed into my brain.

And the next day I got on a call with them and I was like, guys, one word, abnormals.

And abnormals, just instantly,

yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, of course it's there.

We go.

Abnimals is the blanket term that I use.

I've talked about it on my brother, my brother, me and Macroy Family Clubhouse numerous times of like those

90s and 2000s cartoons of like animal heroes with muscles in places that should not have muscles, these teams of guys.

And

so that's the concept.

And then we were going through

like rule systems and everything and nothing fit.

So I developed my own kind of very simple, it's like three and a half pages of rules for the game

and

basically set up of like you have abs

kind of skills.

The two skills are abs and animals.

Abs skills and animals.

It's easy to keep traffic.

Yeah, I don't think we need to break down.

There's an episode zero that I think is probably going up.

But

it's going to be swear-free.

Swear-free.

So if you want to

see if cussing bothers you and you got people you want to listen to that don't like cussing, this won't have cussing in it.

Yeah.

Can we talk about that decision for Abobe?

Because that might seem out of left field for our program.

Yeah.

So as we were planning the season and talking about it and talking about like the source material that it was inspired by.

We started talking about like, oh, maybe it has like a Saturday morning cartoon vibe and blah, blah, blah.

And then that led to what if it was something that people whose kids have started getting into Adventure Zone and role-playing games and this kind of thing could listen to

without needing to turn the volume knob down real quick or say, but you're not allowed to say that at school.

They can say it.

It's okay for them to say that word, but you can't say that word.

Yeah, exactly.

And so who do you think I have the toughest time with that between us four?

Oh, it's Griffin.

Are you kidding me?

You say that, dude?

I pop a market

Justin dropped some heavy ones, some heavy doobies.

Yeah,

I am excited.

I know that Henry has an interest in

Taz, but also it's a foul program made by bad men who say raunchy stuff non-stop.

So it'll be great, personally speaking, to have something that I can show him.

for that.

Killer.

Well, I'm looking forward to doing it with you guys.

Is there anything else you want to say about abnormals?

Yeah, any do you guys want to say who your characters are?

I'll save it.

There's a whole episode for that.

It's fun.

You're going to listen to it.

It's good.

Oh,

what about the music?

Yeah, without saying anything about it, the theme song

is unlike anyone we've had before.

I didn't make this.

I didn't fucking touch this.

Yeah, we can't reveal it because it's coming out pretty soon and it's going to be a whole thing.

But it's maybe my favorite.

I love it very much.

It's just very funny.

It's been stuck in my head for months.

Yeah, and thank you again to John Legend for

this

shit.

But

I do think it's important to say that

another part of Abnimals is continuing this kind of foot-loose, fantasy-free, really enjoying the moment.

Yeah, it's a fun and having fun with it.

Yeah.

Within the no-cussing structure.

Sure.

That has not cussed so far.

Dad is crushing the no-cussing game.

He's so freaking good at it.

Do you think that

it's not just no cussing, but

content-wise?

I mean,

I will say that there are

thought put towards it, but no promises.

Yeah.

I like that trap.

I think in our character descriptions, we do describe them as sexy animals, which abnormals are, I think, as a rule.

But if that's

the, it's, that's the baseline right there.

So if that is unacceptable, maybe wait for, we'll do, dad played a Smurf RPG when we were at Gen Con.

Maybe we'll do an all-Smurf season that'll be like totally TVY7

minimum.

So make sure you stick with us for that and so much more.

That is it for this breakdown of Taz vs.

Dracula.

Genuinely, I just want to say again, I think it's the most fun I've had doing this show with you guys.

And I really, really, really, really enjoyed kind of like focusing on

goofs first with you.

That is like always the most, that's always the most enjoyable that I think us working together is when we, when we kind of.

And I'm sure during the break, you heard all the announcements, but just real quick, so it doesn't pass us by.

We're going to be at Rose City Comic-Con coming up pretty soon.

So make sure you come out and see us there.

Yeah.

Okay, everybody.

Until next time, when we'll recap Taz Abnimals, do we want to give people like a sneak preview clip of

when the milk came out of dad's care?

No, we're just gonna end it with a fan.

No, absolutely not.

We just talked about difficult concepts and having to explain them from children.

Let's just be honest, guys.

We never came up with a way of ending the Adventure Zone Zone that didn't give us hives.

We just have a great idea.

Good, good, bye, bye.

Bye.

By

the way,

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