The Adventure Zone: Amnesty - Episode 25

April 12, 2019 5:06 AM

Our heroes try to contain the spread of information through the citizens of Kepler, and try to keep their overeager allies in check. Aubrey gets stonewalled. Duck fights destiny. Ned says farewell to an old friend.
posted by Tevin (10 comments total)

This was great. I don't usually laugh out loud at Amnesty (although I do find it very funny), but this had a lot of moments that cracked me up in public, particularly the text-to-speech business. Just winding up Griffin with improv on demand. I love it.

I thought Griffin might make up for that with an emotional hammer drop at the end, and he did. How long has Boyd ... ?
posted by Countess Elena at 9:18 AM on April 12, 2019 [1 favorite]

I really love the "Oh, this thing? This is actually normal. Everyone does this, yup" jokey world-building we're getting in Amnesty. Like the phrase, "back to Chicago," and now the idea of taking a nap in a freezer. I love in particular how these sorts of things are the result of Justin, Travis, and Clint just willing them into existence, independent of (or actively against) Griffin's will.

In Balance, the jokey world-building involved a lot more call-and-response style "Yes-and"ing interactions between Griffin and the players. Take, for instance, how Rockport ended up being inhabited by Tom Bodett clones: Clint (I think) jokingly asked if the guy they interacted with looked like Tom Bodett, and Griffin said yes; then Travis (I think) jokingly asked it the next guy was also Tom Bodett; and then Griffin yes-and'ed that into the entire town being populated by Tom Bodett clones. In Amnesty, on the other hand, the setting is established to be more 'realistic,' and Griffin's role requires him to (at least performatively) maintain that sense of realism. So, we get a different dynamic, in which the players have to be a lot more active and conspiratorial to get their silliness established.
posted by meese at 9:53 AM on April 12, 2019 [2 favorites]

I was pretty surprised by Ned's decisions here, but then Clint made the excellent move of lampshading his dumb choices during the confrontation with Boyd. That made me more willing to buy that it was a series of choices made out of panic by a guy who was backsliding into old, bad habits. And of course, it will generate a lot of interesting plot developments, given that there is zero chance Ned explains his way out of this.

Also, I think Duck is 100% correct about the aliens.
posted by showbiz_liz at 1:46 PM on April 12, 2019 [1 favorite]

Ned broke my heart through this whole episode. This is going to explode in his face, and it's going to tear the team apart.

Also... What the heck happened to Mama's laptop! Was it the aliens!?!?
posted by meese at 3:07 PM on April 12, 2019 [1 favorite]

Griffin has really leveled up in cliffhanger this arc. I’m so relieved that’s just a week of waiting this time!
posted by a hat out of hell at 4:58 PM on April 12, 2019

Also the laptop was taken by Agent Stern, right? He’s been sitting there like Chekhov’s gun for a minute now.
posted by a hat out of hell at 5:01 PM on April 12, 2019 [1 favorite]

The only thing confusing me about the aliens part was... aren't all the Sylvain folks aliens anyway?
posted by kmz at 5:45 PM on April 14, 2019

I'm mildly annoyed that Justin and Travis, because they knew Clint had taken the art and left, carried that knowledge in-character and didn't, for example, launch a desperate attack on the monster's known hideouts too early, before they were ready, because of Ned's actions. That would have brought a little more weight to it, as well as prevented me from bristling about 'metagaming,' silly as that is. (Too many hours spent on Bad_RPers_suck back in the day.)
posted by Scattercat at 4:51 PM on April 15, 2019

I'm mildly annoyed that Justin and Travis, because they knew Clint had taken the art and left, carried that knowledge in-character and didn't, for example, launch a desperate attack on the monster's known hideouts too early, before they were ready, because of Ned's actions.

I read it as more of a "Ned's most likely up to some shit, we'd best cover for him until we figure out what it is" kind of reaction, rather than acting on knowledge their characters didn't have.

That said, the boys and Clint have never been great RPGers in terms of mechanics, and I think "keeping player and character knowledge separate" falls into that area. Great fucking job by Clint when it comes to staying true to his character though. The attempt at bargaining was exactly as desperate and as foolish as I expect Ned to be, and it was heartbreaking to see him have to decide between actively betraying Momma and passively betraying Audrey. I'm honestly not sure what choice I would have made in his position. Maybe there is some other way to get Audrey the pendant down the road? Interesting that Faux!Boyd didn't want the pendant most of all...
posted by Rock Steady at 10:49 AM on April 16, 2019

Tevin! Give us the next episode post already!
posted by Navelgazer at 9:16 AM on April 23, 2019 [1 favorite]